Galileo discovered the key property that makes pendulums useful timekeepers: isochronism, which means that the period of swing of a pendulum is approximately the same for different sized swings. Huygens was inspired by investigations of pendulums by Galileo Galilei beginning around 1602. Huygens contracted the construction of his clock designs to clockmaker Salomon Coster, who actually built the clock. He described it in his manuscript Horologium published in 1658. The pendulum clock was invented on 25 December 1656 by Dutch scientist and inventor Christiaan Huygens, and patented the following year. The first pendulum clock, invented by Christiaan Huygens in 1656 Any motion or accelerations will affect the motion of the pendulum, causing inaccuracies, so other mechanisms must be used in portable timepieces. Pendulum clocks must be stationary to operate. Pendulum clocks are now kept mostly for their decorative and antique value. : p.623 The home pendulum clock was replaced by less-expensive synchronous electric clocks in the 1930s and '40s. Their greater accuracy allowed for the faster pace of life which was necessary for the Industrial Revolution. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, pendulum clocks in homes, factories, offices, and railroad stations served as primary time standards for scheduling daily life, work shifts, and public transportation. From its invention in 1656 by Christiaan Huygens, inspired by Galileo Galilei, until the 1930s, the pendulum clock was the world's most precise timekeeper, accounting for its widespread use. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is an approximate harmonic oscillator: It swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on its length, and resists swinging at other rates. Vienna regulator style pendulum wall clockĪ pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element.
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