Talk:Balance spring

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For this to be practical, the oscillating motion of the balance has to be converted to rotary motion of the gear train by the escapement

ought to read: the oscillating motion of the balance has to control the rotary motion of the gear train

This is because the excapement does not drive, but rather controls, the speed of the gears. hence the name escapement. I hesitate to make the edit because I dont know if early balance-spring time pieces worked differently. I have seen some clocks where the pendulum drove the gears. Enhandle (talk)enhandle

Newton's watch
In The Principia, Section 7, Volume 2, in the third edition, Newton describes experiments, carried out in 1719, in timing the descent of balloons made of pigs' bladders in St. Paul's cathedral. He states that a bystander had a `horologium cum elatere ad singula minuta secunda quater vibrante'. That might mean that the bystander had a watch with a spring that vibrated four times every second. It would be possible to replace `watch' by `clock', or any other time piece. The problem is with the spring. One would take `elatus' to be a neuter noun, meaning `something raised up', here in the ablative. However, the context seems to require `spring'. If anyone who understands these watches (or clocks) can help, please let me know at crlg@maths.qmul.ac.uk. Charles Leedham-Green82.7.49.198 (talk) 13:56, 14 October 2012 (UTC)