The historical importance of the pendulum as the first timing device is interesting to note. There are those who claim that without the pendulum European colonization of many parts of the world would never have been possible. This may be a bit of a stretch but the reasoning is as follows. Without a means of accurately measuring time, navigation on the open seas is not possible. It is often said that navigation out of sight of land is accomplished by the position of the sun and stars. Of course it is the position of these elements at a particulartimethat is important in determining one's geographical position. Thus, accurate clocks were essential for open sea navigation.

Galileo is credited with coming up with the key insight that the period of the pendulum is independent of the amplitude of the oscillation. In other words it did not matter whether the pendulum was swinging in a wide arc or a small arc the time for one complete oscillation remained the same. Supposedly Galileo came across this discovery in church by watching the swinging censers (incense holders) and using his pulse as a timing systems. You can learn more about Galileo by clicking his picture below.

Galileo

 

Although most watches now days using quartz electronics for timing when I was a lad (long ago) watches were mechanical and they used a torsional pendulum, a small reciprocating device, as the timing source. Just thought you'd like to know. OK lets go back to the action.