Since ancient times, people have divided day and night into equal segments and began to count the time for the convenience of compiling a work and rest schedule. The first clocks were associated with astronomy and determined the time by the movement of the stars. Today, wristwatches with automatic chronographs, while retaining the function of counting and displaying time, perform other functions, sometimes completely unrelated to time. Automatic chronograph watches for means and women are so popular nowadays.
Accuracy – the politeness of kings.
Since ancient times, mankind has been keeping track of time. For thousands of years, people have used not only heavenly bodies, but also water, fire, and sand. Knowledge grew, and with it, technologies for measuring time developed. A new era has brought us mechanical watches. Just a few centuries – and a pendulum appears in them. Another half century – they already fit in your pocket. And here comes the First World War, mass production of watches is being established in the world.
The main reason why we buy watches is the ability to tell the time from them. And if in the Middle Ages it was impossible to find anything on the dial except the hour hand (the accuracy was appropriate), then modern devices can count time to the nearest fraction of a second, while checking with atomic clocks. Such models need not be run more than once every thirty million years.
Style element.
Watches always have been value.The special knowledge and technologies possessed by the masters made the watch not only a useful device, but sometimes a small work of art. Only wealthy people could afford such a product, and they wanted their things to look luxurious.
So watch cases and dials began to be made of gold and other precious metals, decorated with precious stones. After the complexity of the mechanism came an aesthetic approach to the appearance of the watch.
So to this day, we choose watches in appearance, in accordance with our taste and fashion trends. A classic watch, matched to a men’s suit, is a luxurious and elegant finishing touch. For a lady, this is a bright touch in a fashionable toilet or an independent piece of jewelry. And even a cool beach look is impossible to create without a big bright watch on your wrist.
Functions.
For centuries, engineering thought has worked to add extra features to watches. When choosing a watch today, we look to see if it has a calendar. Some can only show a number, but there are also models that can independently count the date, adjusted for a leap year. It will be enough to correct such a perpetual calendar once in the next century. The built-in alarm clock will help you not to oversleep in the morning. Without a chronometer, sports are unthinkable. Do you want to record your achievements on morning runs or in the pool? No stopwatch anywhere. Love diving? The range of world manufacturers includes a wide range of wristwatches with functions from simple timing to a built-in dive sensor with the ability to keep a log.
Collecting.
It is the complexity and sophistication of execution, the beauty of the processing of the mechanism, and interesting engineering solutions that inspire people around the world to collect luxury watches. Someone, having received his first watch as a gift from his parents, after a few years collects a selection for every day and his collection already contains watches for relaxation, social events and work in extreme conditions. And someone finds their first exhibit at a local flea market and then cannot stop, considering, like in a book, the history of the world and the country through antique watches – as if on a symbolic journey through time.
Mechanical watches.
The Greek astronomer Androgenic oversaw the construction of the Tower of the Winds in Athens in the first century BC. This octagonal structure combined a sundial and a mechanical device, which consisted of a mechanized catalepsya (water clock) and wind indicators, hence the name of the tower. All this complex structure, in addition to time indicators, was able to display the seasons and astrological dates. The Romans, around the same time, also used mechanized water clocks, but the complexity of such combined devices, the forerunner of mechanical clocks, did not give them any advantage over the simpler clocks of the time.
As mentioned earlier, attempts to combine a water clock (clepsydra) with a specific mechanism were successfully carried out in China from 200 to 1300, resulting in a mechanized astronomical (astrological) clock. One of the most complex clock towers was built by the Chinese Su Sen in 1088. But all these inventions could not be called mechanical watches, but rather a symbiosis of a water or sundial with a mechanism. However, all the advances and inventions made in the past led to the creation of the mechanical watch that we still use today.
