Talk:Torsion pendulum clock

torsional restoring force
Is the tortional restoring force in the spring independant of the longitudinal tension in the spring? --Roly (talk) 15:02, 8 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Dear Roly,
 * The article "pendulum clock" says that a "Torsion pendulum clock ... is independent of the local force of gravity", which seems to imply that the torsional restoring force in the torsion spring is independent of the longitudinal tension in the spring.
 * Is the restoring force (and hence the period) merely approximately independent of gravity and tension, analogous to the way the period of a simple pendulum is approximately independent of amplitude?
 * Or is the torsional restoring force in the torsion spring completely independent of gravity or tension or both?
 * I wish we had a reference that would specifically answer that question one way or another. --DavidCary (talk) 05:40, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

one torsional oscillation
This torsion pendulum clock article mentions "One oscillation of the torsion pendulum usually takes 12, 15, or 20 seconds.", and the Atmos clock article says "the Atmos ... executes only two torsional oscillations per minute". Neither article defines what it means by "one oscillation".

By "20 seconds", does it mean the bob turns "left" for 20 seconds, and then "right" for 20 seconds, for a total period of 40 seconds? Or does it mean the complete cycle returning to (more-or-less) the original position in a total period of 20 seconds?

The videos I've seen of the Atmos (such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEVvOx97R4s ) show its torsion pendulum moving "left" for about 30 seconds, and "right" for about 30 seconds, for a total period of 1 minute (60 seconds).

Does the term "one torsional oscillation" typically mean only a single left-to-right motion, or a single right-to-left motion, analogous to the term "swing" or "tick" in a longcase clock?

Or does the term "one torsional oscillation" typically mean the complete cycle of left-to-right, and then right-to-left, and if so, what term can we use for each half-cycle of torsional oscillation?

--DavidCary (talk) 15:28, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Invention date inconsistency
This article says that the torsion pendulum was invented in 1793. But Nuremberg eggs talks about work on the torsion pendulum being done in the 16th century. Can anyone provide some clarification? --David Edgar (talk) 07:23, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Dead link
The link for NAWCC Chapter 168 seems to have died in 2010. The most recent I found in the Wayback was https://web.archive.org/web/20100226085820/http://www.nawcc-ch168.com/tt_june_06.html 98.222.231.91 (talk) 07:44, 4 November 2023 (UTC)