The mechanical watch

[Goodwatch]

In one of Peter’s (Padi) replies he mentioned the Grand Seiko mega quartz caliber, capable of maintaining accuracy of about +/- 5 seconds a year. This is an incredible performance and I believe the deviation is only caused by the unavoidable and uncontrollable friction of the mechanical parts in these watches. So what if we dispense with mechanical parts all together and make it ALL electronic? With an LCD display? Or even better still, make the watch a DCF receiver like there are so many. They receive a time pulse signal from a DCF transmitter that is controlled by a Cesium atomic clock with a deviation of 1 second in a 100,000 years. This ends all discussion about accuracy. Pop this ‘movement’ in a sturdy case and there you have it, the ultimate watch. These watches are made by a number of companies now, including Casio.

My alarm clock is like this, it even switches from summer to winter time, has two separate alarms and never looses a beat. I don’t need the alarm because I’m one of those people with a biological alarm. I always wake up just before the alarm will sound. The clock is there just in case.

But to make a long story short: I don’t give a hoot about these soulless wonders. There maybe 100,000 arguments for these electronic marvels and a 100,000 arguments against those archaic mechanical dinosaurs but this doesn’t matter. There’s just something about these contraptions made out of cogs, wheels, springs, jewels and plates that I find very fascinating. What is your opinion on this?