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A balance wheel, or balance, is the timekeeping device used in mechanical watches and small clocks, analogous to the pendulum in a pendulum clock.It is a weighted wheel that rotates back and forth, being returned toward its center position by a spiral torsion spring, known as the balance spring or hairspring.
The sudden stopping of the escapement's tooth is what generates the characteristic "ticking" sound heard in operating mechanical clocks and watches. The first mechanical escapement, the verge escapement , was invented in medieval Europe during the 13th century and was the crucial innovation that led to the development of the mechanical clock.
An escapement is a mechanical linkage that delivers impulses to the timepiece's balance wheel, keeping it oscillating back and forth, and with each swing of the balance wheel allows the timepiece's gear train to advance a fixed amount, thus moving the hands forward at a steady rate. The escapement is what makes the "ticking" sound in mechanical ...
For the first two hundred years or so of the mechanical clock's existence, the verge, with foliot or balance wheel, was the only escapement used in mechanical clocks. In the sixteenth century alternative escapements started to appear, but the verge remained the most used escapement for 350 years until mid-17th century advances in mechanics ...
The Ottoman engineer Taqi ad-Din described a weight-driven clock with a verge-and-foliot escapement, a striking train of gears, an alarm, and a representation of the Moon's phases in his book The Brightest Stars for the Construction of Mechanical Clocks (Al-Kawākib al-durriyya fī wadh' al-bankāmat al-dawriyya), written around 1565. [119]
Huygens' maintaining power in use. The weight drive used by Christiaan Huygens in his early clocks acts as a maintaining power. In this layout, the weight which drives the clock is carried on a pulley and the cord (or chain) supporting the weight is wrapped around the main driving wheel on one side and the rewinding wheel on the other.
Animation of an anchor escapement, one of the most common escapements used in pendulum clocks . The escapement is a mechanical linkage that converts the force from the clock's wheel train into impulses that keep the pendulum swinging back and forth. It is the part that makes the "ticking" sound in a working pendulum clock.
The clock face design is also licensed for use on certain Apple devices, such as iPads and iPhones. [2] Apple initially used the clock design without permission in iOS 6 . [ 7 ] [ 8 ] Although the exact details of the licensing agreement are confidential, [ 9 ] it was reported that Apple ultimately paid Swiss national rail operator SBB about ...