Big Ben drops out of COSC

[77T]

Heard this just today.
-6 seconds

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/w...825-story.html

But techs ran in and now just -2 secs.
Hmmm... Wonder what a clockmaker charges for house call almost 200' up in air.

All's well now - we can carry on...


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[wantonebad]

Frankly I would have been shocked had you told me it was accurate so...

[77T]

Funny thing - we have a big Grandfather clock and crank up the weights every week. It was serviced once in 25 years and loses 1 minute a week measured to time.is so not really bad by our standards.


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[Old Expat Beast]

Well, Big Ben (or more accurately Elizabeth Tower) can’t be laid face up or face down every night of course, but it is quite easy to regulate its clock mechanism to be highly accurate with the use of coins stacked on top of the pendulum…

[TheBluePrince]

Very rare for it to be out by that much. It's usually within a second a day. Time for a service mebs, it has been running for 156 years after all.

[padi56]

Originally Posted by wantonebad

Frankly I would have been shocked had you told me it was accurate so...

Many of today's chronometers are not as accurate as John Harrison H4 marine chronometer made around 300 years ago. So guys next time your watch is perhaps a few seconds fast or slow just outside COSC spec,just think about John Harrison's watches made all that time ago.No computer aided graphic designs no machine robots to cut the precision parts. Only his bare hands and by today's standards very primitive tools.Now when Harrison's son William set sail for the West Indies, with the Harrison H4 marine chronometer aboard the ship Deptford on 18 November 1761. They arrived in Jamaica on 19 January 1762, where his watch was found to be only 5 seconds slow! in almost 2 months on one of the most harsh environments known to man the open sea,with accuracy three times greater, that was required to win the £20,000 Longitude prize,and in those days £20,000 must have been quite a huge sum of money.So next time when your Rolex or any watch is just a few seconds out.Chill and simply think of John Harrison who made a mechanical watch around 300 hundred years ago that was more accurate than most mechanical wrist watches today,better than some quartz.

[witch watch]

Originally Posted by Old Expat Beast

Well, Big Ben (or more accurately Elizabeth Tower)…

Or to give it it's original name, Clock Tower

[bayerische]

Originally Posted by padi56

Many of today's chronometers are not as accurate as John Harrison H4 marine chronometer made around 300 years ago. So guys next time your watch is perhaps a few seconds fast or slow just outside COSC spec,just think about John Harrison's watches made all that time ago.No computer aided graphic designs no machine robots to cut the precision parts. Only his bare hands and by today's standards very primitive tools.Now when Harrison's son William set sail for the West Indies, with the Harrison H4 marine chronometer aboard the ship Deptford on 18 November 1761. They arrived in Jamaica on 19 January 1762, where his watch was found to be only 5 seconds slow! in almost 2 months on one of the most harsh environments known to man the open sea,with accuracy three times greater, that was required to win the £20,000 Longitude prize,and in those days £20,000 must have been quite a huge sum of money.So next time when your Rolex or any watch is just a few seconds out.Chill and simply think of John Harrison who made a mechanical watch around 300 hundred years ago that was more accurate than most mechanical wrist watches today,better than some quartz.

[TheBluePrince]

I saw all of Harrison's chronometers together, all running, for the first time ever, a few months ago at the Longitude exhibition at Greenwich. Absolutely stunning to see. The detail, engineering, quality and brilliance of them all was quite extraordinary.

[77T]

Originally Posted by padi56

Many of today's chronometers are not as accurate as John Harrison H4 marine chronometer made around 300 years ago. So guys next time your watch is perhaps a few seconds fast or slow just outside COSC spec,just think about John Harrison's watches made all that time ago.No computer aided graphic designs no machine robots to cut the precision parts. Only his bare hands and by today's standards very primitive tools.Now when Harrison's son William set sail for the West Indies, with the Harrison H4 marine chronometer aboard the ship Deptford on 18 November 1761. They arrived in Jamaica on 19 January 1762, where his watch was found to be only 5 seconds slow! in almost 2 months on one of the most harsh environments known to man the open sea,with accuracy three times greater, that was required to win the £20,000 Longitude prize,and in those days £20,000 must have been quite a huge sum of money.So next time when your Rolex or any watch is just a few seconds out.Chill and simply think of John Harrison who made a mechanical watch around 300 hundred years ago that was more accurate than most mechanical wrist watches today,better than some quartz.

Excellent points.

I'd also add, he wound it up manually and calibrated its performance to original source, I.e., celestial time (from whence time was measured before atomic measurement)