Time is an integral part of every person’s life. Moreover, each civilization invented its own methods, but sooner or later they all came down to creating an automatic mechanism - the clock. Nowadays, the electronic type of device is most popular, but it is often called quartz. Many may find this a mistake, but in fact, not everything is so simple.
The definition of time in antiquity
The concept of time appeared several thousand years BC. Different peoples tried to divide the day in the most convenient ways for themselves, in order to simplify the procedure for determining the exact hour in a day. The most famous example is an arrow placed parallel to the ground. Thanks to the cast shadow, people determined approximately the time of day.
Interesting fact: the Sumerians were the first to invent the hexadecimal number system, about three thousand years before our era. They guessed to divide time, using the number “60” as the basis.
The first hours with built-in mechanisms were sand and water. Their principle was built on the gradual flow of sand or liquid from one bowl to another.
A Brief History of Modern Watches
In the 14th century, people came up with a spring watch. Two centuries later, a model was invented, which was based on a pendulum operating at a frequency of 1 clock / s. The invention quickly began to be made in different variations using a spring mechanism: wall, pocket, tower and other watches.And if earlier only wealthy people could afford the device, as well as city administrations, placing them on the towers for general viewing, then from the XVI century the clock became public.
In 1957, an important event in the history of watches happened: an American company launched a quartz watch, which used a quartz crystal as an oscillating system. The device had a very small error in comparison with mechanical ones: after a month of operation, the clock value differed from the exact time by only 15 seconds, while in mechanical ones the error was 40 seconds per day.
After some time, an electronic clock appeared in which the time value is displayed. They gained great popularity because of the convenience and a large number of additional features. Companies involved in the production quite quickly began to incorporate backlights, sound signals, an alarm clock, etc. into the models. Until now, many as a joke recall the famous watch with a built-in calculator.
Interesting fact: atomic clocks, invented at about the same time as electronic ones, have the highest accuracy. They are a complex setup that determines the time based on the transmission of electromagnetic radiation through cesium-133 atoms. The accuracy of an atomic clock is 1 second in 30 million years.
Why is an electronic watch called quartz?
Before answering the main question of the article, you need to understand the principle of operation of quartz watches.The device is divided into two parts: electronic and mechanical. The latter consists of a mechanism with arrows, which are shown on the dial.
The electronic component is a combination of an oscillation generator, a quartz resonator and a divider. The design is programmed at a frequency of 32,768 Hz, after which the crystal oscillator begins to produce one cycle per second. The signal is transmitted to the mechanical part, which is a stepper motor. Its gears begin to rotate at a second interval, causing the arrows to move.
The principle of operation of an electronic clock is also based on a quartz oscillator, which has the same settings. It is just that the signal is supplied not to the mechanical part, but to the microcircuit, which converts it using discrete methods into a time indicator and displays the value on the display.
An electronic clock is often called a quartz, because its operation is also based on a quartz generator, which supplies a signal with a one-second beat to the microcircuit.
