WatchTime - August 2012

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PROFILE TAG Heuer’s Guy Sémon ter launching two new high-frequency chronographs within two months, including the first to achieve 1/1,000-second accuracy. Not Guy Sémon. His latest super-chronograph is called the Mikrogirder, and its design is a revolution in chronometry. To achieve something faster than 1/1,000-second, Sémon had to abandon classic escapement design because, he says, traditional balance wheels and spiral hairsprings are not capable of oscillating reliably at frequencies above 500 Hz. In a traditional escapement, the balance wheel oscillates back and forth somewhere between 270 and 320 degrees in a horizontal position. While higher speeds and smaller amplitudes are possible (with smaller balance wheels and stiffer hairsprings), traditional escapements were never intended to operate at extremely high frequencies. Their physical limitations 70 WatchTime August 2012 The Mikrotimer Flying 1000 achieves millisecond accuracy. meant a new design was needed. It was time to get out the proverbial clean sheet of paper. Sémon’s new design is inspired by the work of an 18th century French scientist, who, like Sémon, was a physicist and mathematician, not a watchmaker. During the 1740s, Jean le Rond d’Alembert published influential papers on the vibration of strings and wave equations, and his work still plays important roles in physics today. During his days as a university physics instructor, Sémon taught a class that included d’Alembert’s work. Sémon’s new d’Alembert-inspired regulator consists of three very small metal blades (TAG Heuer also calls them “girders” or “beams”) that can be induced to vibrate at high frequencies, and it represents a complete departure from the centuries-old balance wheel and spiral spring system. THE MIKROGIRDER’S FREQUENCY IS 1,000 HZ, OR 7.2 MILLION VPH. TAG HEUER SAYS IT IS THE FASTEST MECHANICAL REGULATOR EVER CREATED AND TESTED. The Mikrogirder has an escape wheel that turns and makes contact with two teeth on an anchor, but that’s where any visual similarity to traditional escapements ends. The anchor excites the first of the three blades, called the excitating blade, which in turn excites the coupling blade, which excites the linear oscillator (also shaped like a blade). These three blades are mere millimeters long and small fractions of millimeters in diameter. The linear oscillator performs the same function as the hairspring in a traditional escapement, controlling the speed of the oscillation or vibration. In the prototypes we saw, the excitating blade is titanium, while the coupling blade and linear oscillator are steel. As Sémon explains his new system, the energy of the escape wheel’s rotation is converted into potential energy in the anchor and excitating blade. This sets up a vibration in the blades and linear oscillator. The escape wheel is like a finger plucking a guitar string (except the Mikrogirder does not generate an audible note). The Mikrogirder’s frequency is 1,000 Hz, or 7.2 million vph. TAG Heuer says it is the fastest mechanical regulator ever created and tested. Explaining why he opted for 1,000 Hz, Sémon said, “I can cut 1,000 into two parts, and I can see for the first time the scale of 1/10,000s of a second. I can touch this scale for the first time in a mechanical system.”
1 ms Just a Millisecond The TAG Heuer Mikrotimer can measure to the 1/1,000-second. If you’re wondering what you could possibly time with such a watch, read on. 1 millisecond (1 ms) - Typical accuracy for a Network Time Protocol server used to synchronize time on computer networks - Duration of light for typical photo flash strobe - Time it takes for a sound wave to travel about 13.4 inches - Time it takes for light to travel about 186 miles in a vacuum 1.4 – 10 ms One rotation of an ultra-fast spinning pulsar 3 ms A housefly's wing flap 3.3 ms Normal delay time between initiation and detonation of a C4 explosive charge 4 ms Typical average seek time for a 10,000 rpm hard disk 5 ms A honey bee's wing flap 8 ms Standard camera shutter speed (125) 1.4 - 10 ms 3 ms 3.3 ms 4 ms 5 ms 32.4 ms The shortest time it takes data to travel from New York City to London. 33.3 ms The time one frame lasts in 30 fps video 50 ms The time between gear changes on a Lamborghini Aventador 134 ms Time it takes for light to travel around the earth's equator 150–300 ms Human reflex response to visual stimuli 200 ms The time it takes the human brain to recognize emotion in facial expressions 300 to 400 ms The blink of a human’s eye 400 ms Time it takes for the fastest baseball pitches to reach the strike zone 495 ms Approximate average of the round trip time for communications via geosynchronous satellites 8 ms 32.4 ms 33.3 ms 50 ms 134 ms 150 -300 ms 200 ms 300 - 400 ms 400 ms 495 ms August 2012 WatchTime 71
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WatchTime - August 2012

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