![]() The first quartz wristwatch was the Seiko Astron, which was released on Christmas Day, in 1969. ![]() This resulted a significant improvement in accuracy over virtually all mechanical watches of the time, and the Accutron would go unchallenged for nearly another decade – until quartz oscillators arrived on the scene. The standard for modern mechanical watches is 28,800 vibrations per hour, which can also be expressed in the total number of complete oscillations per second, or Hertz – 28,800 vph is 4Hz. The first really major advance in oscillator technology for watches, and the first decisive step away from the balance and spring, was the Bulova Accutron, which debuted in 1960, and used an electronically driven tuning fork, oscillating at 360Hz. If you go to the British Museum, you can see one, by Tompion, with a 13 foot pendulum and a period of 0.25Hz). A balance can be made to vibrate fairly quickly – much more rapidly than a pendulum (pendulum clocks often oscillate once every second or two although other periods are possible. ![]() As a general rule, and all other things being equal, an oscillator vibrating at a higher frequency will have greater precision than one vibrating at a slower frequency.
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