The precision of quartz
The use of quartz in watches
Quartz is the most abundant mineral on Earth. It is very hard and many variants are used in the jewelry industry. But in the 1920s it was given a different use: they invented quartz watches.
Engineer Warren Morrison observed that if an electric field is applied to the quartz, its crystals vibrate at a very precise frequency.
These vibrations can be translated into electrical pulses of the same frequency. Taking advantage of this characteristic of quartz, the first quartz watches were made. The electrical impulses obtained through the vibrations start the clock motor and the gear that moves the external needles.
The vibrations of the quartz are so accurate that they can have the error of two hundredths of a day, that is, one minute in 8 years.
This desire to measure time is a long-standing fact, and it seems that they invented a multitude of instruments, increasingly precise, trying to control the measurement: solar, water, sand, pendulum, mechanical, quartz... However, they have taken a step further in the precision of the measurement of time and have achieved absolute precision with atomic clocks today.
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