![]() ![]() With the anchor escapement, the pallets of the anchor accurately regulated the rotational speed of the escape wheel while keeping in step with the pendulum, which dramatically improved the precision. ![]() In the same year he reportedly produced the Royal Pendulum Clock-a longcase clock with a pendulum of more than one meter in length, an oscillation period of two seconds per cycle (0.5 Hz), and accuracy that could be measured in seconds-and had it installed in the Royal Greenwich Observatory. The longer and heavier the pendulum, the more stable the accuracy of the clock will be, and by making the escapement work with a small amplitude of just two to four degrees, Clement was able to use a long pendulum of over one meter to achieve more precise isochronism. The English clockmaker William Clement then improved Hooke’s recoil escapement around 1671 and contributed greatly to the popularization of this technology in ensuing years. In contrast, the recoil anchor escapement was driven by a pendulum swinging at small amplitude of just two to five degrees, meaning it could swing in a cycloid curve. With the crown wheel escapement, the angle of the pendulum amplitude was inevitably more than 30 degrees due to the large verge, and this resulted in an overly long oscillation period. This escapement was composed of an anchor and an escape wheel. The British scientist Robert Hooke studied the pendulum clock which Huygens had invented in 1656, and contrived a “recoil anchor escapement” which greatly decreased the amplitude of the pendulum. If the amplitude of the pendulum becomes too great, the pendulum will leave the cycloid curve and lose its isochronism.įor foliot balance clocks, a daily error of about 15 minutes was normal, but with the invention of the pendulum clock this was greatly improved to just a few minutes a day. The isochronism of the pendulum discovered by Galileo has a particular condition, which is that the pendulum is isochronous so long as it swings in a cycloid curve. In place of a foliot balance, he utilized an isochronal pendulum and placed compensators on both sides to limit the amplitude of the pendulum. In 1656, fourteen years after Galileo’s death, Christiaan Huygens used a pendulum for a weight-driven clock with a crown wheel escapement, thereby inventing the first pendulum clock. Galileo conceived of an isochronous pendulum clock in 1637, but never went on to complete it. This was the turning point from the age of mechanical clocks not controlled by periodic motion to the age of mechanical clocks moved by continuous oscillation in a fixed cycle. Galileo Galilei discovered the isochronism of the pendulum in 1583. ![]()
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