Five Things

[tribe125]

Too late Raza, all possible debate was settled yesterday.

[Raza]

Too late Raza, all possible debate was settled yesterday.

I guess you're right. Geoff said they're quartz, so I guess they're quartz.

[tribe125]

I guess you're right. Geoff said they're quartz, so I guess they're quartz.

You and Geoff have made the same mistake. I didn’t say it was mechanical. Once improved it becomes something else. It doesn’t matter how it’s categorised or what it’s called. Seiko call it Spring Drive.

[Matt]

You and Geoff have made the same mistake. I didn’t say it was mechanical. Once improved it becomes something else. It doesn’t matter how it’s categorised or what it’s called. Seiko call it Spring Drive.

Hang on, what do you mean by 'improved'. The history of quartz has a number of ways in which a high frequency signal is the control for a low frequency one. The Rolex 5035 uses an escapement, the Seiko 35SQ a tuning fork and the GP352 a stepper motor. They are all called quartz. Why we should make an exception for a quartz that uses a spring drive is unclear to me. Likewise, there have been a number of power sources for quartz, several of which arose as part of the design process of the SD and the ASULAB equivalent.

The key question is what provides the timebase and for the spring drive, the only source of a timebase is a quartz circuit that includes a resonator and a divider circuit. There are plenty of power sources for quartz - sunlight, mechanical, capacitor, temperature differential, battery. None of these stop the watch being a quartz.

I just can't see a principled way that the the SD can be seen as anything other than a pure quartz with a novel power source and novel display.

[Seriously]

I just can't see a principled way that the the SD can be seen as anything other than a pure quartz with a novel power source and novel display..

This

[rodia77]

The key question is what provides the timebase

Is this universally agreed on?

[Matt]

Is this universally agreed on?

Is that the right question? The history of science is littered with examples of universal agreement that was flat wrong. The fact is that the defining feature of a timepiece is the timebase. I concede that the complexity of the SD and the familiarity of clockwork invite reification in much the same way as the movement of the sun invites universal agreement that the Sun moves around the Earth. However, the part that tells the time in the SD is absolutely vanilla quartz. This could be removed from the SD and, with precious little modification, could run off a battery, a stepper motor and (as it only divides to four pulses a second rather than one) an extra cog and wheel. An SD with the quartz element removed would not tell the time. The glide wheel would simply race until discharged or broken.

[synequano]

I see spring drive as hybrid,the escapement of mechanical with quartz regulation

If the Swiss come up with this,probably it’ll cost much more than the price of GS

Personally I’m not interested in SD as I find the PR indicator to be annoying and I’m not an accuracy freak but I’m glad it’s invented by the Japanese,not Swiss...

[mlcor]

I see spring drive as hybrid,the escapement of mechanical with quartz regulation

If the Swiss come up with this,probably it’ll cost much more than the price of GS

Personally I’m not interested in SD as I find the PR indicator to be annoying and I’m not an accuracy freak but I’m glad it’s invented by the Japanese,not Swiss...

There are some spring drives that have the PR indicator on the back.


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[tribe125]

Spring Drive is about two things - energy storage and regulation. It’s about the two together and neither is king. Categorisation doesn’t matter - except that we feel compelled to categorise.

Anyway, it’s all settled now.