Club contact: Andrew Grant
andygrantrwg@yahoo.co.uk
June 2024 – update
An excellent meeting with a talk by Chris Johns (Secretary of Pontypool Probus Club)
“A Brief History of Timekeeping and Wristwatch Timepieces”
Mankind has always had a fascination with the passage of time whether it is annual, monthly or daily as these had a direct effect on how they were able to live. . The Circadian rhythm, or Circadian cycle, is a natural oscillation that repeats roughly every 24 hours and can refer to any process that originates within an organism. The first evidence of measurement is the Lebombo Bone, discovered in Africa, which is about 44,000 years old and with its 29 notches may have been used to measure the lunar phases and its relation to the menstruation cycle of women. Early clocks were based on the sundial, water clocks or sand glass models and in some cases were quite accurate, however the precise measurement of time became more and more essential when it was needed by sailors to find their location when at sea and more recently when performing any modern tasks. Whereas early timekeeping was in terms of hours and minutes the requirement for smaller intervals particularly with atomic clocks was necessary and the smallest time interval in use is the Zeptosecond which is defined as the time it takes for a photon to cross a hydrogen molecule – around 247 zeptoseconds – making this measurement the shortest time span ever to have been successfully recorded.
A Zeptosecond is a trillionth of a billionth of a second.
Ancient calculators started a long time ago with Stonehenge type constructions to measure astronomical events but horology really started in the 15th Century when pendulum clocks and hair spring devices were in use. In 1714 the British Government offered a reward for an accurate clock to aid navigation but it wasn’t until 1767 when John Harrison invented the first sea watch that this became reliable. Watches were developed by inventors and engineers from the 16th century to the mid-20th century as mechanical devices, powered by winding a mainspring which turned gears and then moved the hands; they kept time with a rotating balance wheel. In the 1960s the invention of the quartz watch which ran on electricity and kept time with a vibrating quartz crystal, proved a radical departure for the watchmaking industry. During the 1980s quartz watches took over the market from mechanical watches, a process referred to as the “quartz crisis”. Although mechanical watches still sell in the watch market, the vast majority of watches as of 2020 have quartz movements and the most recent have a multifunctionality as well as telling the time
July 2024 Annual General Meeting
Our new President Roy Nuth was inducted together with the new Committee.
Following the formal part of the meeting Clive Hughes, one of our members, ran an entertaining quiz followed by a lunch and free dessert.
Please contact me for any further information at the e-mail address above or on 02920252422.
Although our membership is growing, we still have room for new people and I would be glad to hear from any interested parties. We meet on the second Thursday of each month at the Llanishen Golf Club in Cardiff at 10am for coffee before starting the meeting proper at 10.30am. Lunch is available at the club and the great majority of the members stay for this excellent value meal.
Please note the e-mail address above is not hyperlinked so please enter my address manually.
Andrew Grant (Secretary)