Bob Holmstrom wrote:
Food for thought.
I find it interesting that no one has suggested alternatives to
improving the performance of a pendulum clock other than controlling it
with a higher performance clock. If the goal is a better clock why not
attempt to understand the source of the errors and work on methods to
control or compensate for them? Teddy Hall has been taken to task for
using a quartz controlled oscillator to measure the amplitude of a
pendulum in the control loop of his Littlemore clock.
Tom Van Baak has developed techniques for analyzing the performance and
hence potential error sources of pendulum clocks - perhaps he will share
some of his work here.
Horological history is full of many attempts at solutions to the
problem, but it would seem that the creativity of this group might
generate some new ideas that are more in the spirit of better
timekeeping than attaching the pendulum to a better oscillator.
Perhaps you really mean "better pendulum (or mechanical) timekeeping",
because by pretty much any measure except aesthetics, vibrating rocks or
atoms does a better job.
Mind you, I think that this is a worthy goal, because complex mechanisms
that work well are a thing of beauty.
_______________________________________________
time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected]
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
