An Introduction to Watches

Well gang it’s anther wonderful day for appreciating the wonderful gifts that our creator has given to us. The human mind, the human creativity is capable of so many amazing things that are only the beginning of what we are really capable of. If humans in an imperfect state are able to achieve elegant and beautiful creations and inventions, just imagine what we will be capable of when we are perfect!.
Well this is a series dedicated to a new interest of mine, Swiss watches and how the work. Due to my line of work, I have had to read and familiarize myself with varying aspects of watches. The little I have seen so far is fascinating. Fascinating enough to make me want to get into a little matchmaking and repair as a hobby. So this post is intended to be an introduction to wristwatches in general.

Wristwatches generally come in three different categories:

Mechanical - These are wristwatches that use a mechanical system to run the watch. They involve a spring that is wound by hand and a system of gears that regulate the unwinding in such a way to tell time.

Automatic - These are wristwatches that are very similar to mechanical but they are not wound by hand they have an automatic winding system that usually takes advantage of the natural movement of the hand to wind the main spring.

Quartz - These watches are regulated by a pizioelectric quartz crystal and mostly (not always) don’t rely on a system of moving parts to tell the time.

As far as accuracy goes the quartz watch wins. They mechanical watch is accurate to 2-3 seconds per day. The quartz watch on the other hand is accurate to a much higher degree. However as the watch making community goes they say that having a mechanical watch is not about accuracy but about the art and beauty of the timepiece.

Does Anyone Have the Time?

Wrist watches, Coo Coo Clocks, Hourglasses, sundials, mechanical watches, automatic watches, quartz. Recently I have become engrossed at the complexity and sheer engineering genius of the Swiss made mechanical watch. This has begun to show me how many different types of watches there really are. No only are there many different designs used, they are very intricate and each one a marvel of human engineering.
Watches generally come in a number of different types. The by far most widely diffused type of watch is the Quartz watch that uses a piezoelectric quartz crystal to keep the time. However before this technology was invented, man has invented many different ways of keeping time. In the following series I will examine interesting aspects and the evolution of the mechanical wind wristwatch and how it works. It is interesting to note that all watches or timepieces have always depended on one authority to tell the time. The universes clock. The universe that we live in was created with such beauty and order that we could set our clocks by it… in fact we do.

The Same Old Story

Well, as the world turns, the sun rises and sets on the same attitudes that have always existed for thousands of years. Unity is always just out of reach of human rulers. If you have been following world news, recently in Italy the Prime Minister passed a decree deporting all Romanians that have committed felonies. While this is logical, the xenophobic tendencies of the Italian people are being egged on by increasing incidences of violence etc caused by immigrants.
For example, since Romania has entered the European Union there has been a massive influx of Romanians in Italy, and along with it an increase of delinquency. However now the "discomfort" of having an increase in immigration is in an increasing number of cases turning into racism and prejudice.
It all started with the murder of a Italian woman last week for which a Romanian youth is accused. From then there have been incidences of aggression on Romanians. Friday a group of masked Italians beat up three Romanians. Yesterday in Turin an Italian man fired, from his apartment balcony upon a parked car with a Romanian man in the driver’s seat. Two shots fired, no one hurt but when he was asked why he did it, he responded that his girlfriend had a heated argument with a Romanian woman in a club a few hours before and in his indignation for Romanians he fired upon the man in the car.

As a wise man once said: "I can't even make this stuff up..."