The Evolution of the Quartz Crystal Cloc
The Evolution of the Quartz crystal clock

It almost never happens that a result of any considerable value is obtained at a single stroke or comes through the efforts of a single person. More often even the most important advances come as the climax of a long series of ideas which have accumulated over a period of years until the next step becomes almost self-evident and is accomplished either through the necessity for a new result or as a logical next step.

This was preeminently the case in the crystal clock development and involved the putting together of a considerable number of ideas that had been accumulating through a century or more of related activity. The chain of events which led eventually to the crystal clock followed a course quite independent of pendulum clock development, although parallel with it, and meeting it from time to time on the way. From the start, it involved the use of resonant elements whose frequencies do not depend upon gravity for controlling the frequency of oscillations in a positive feedback amplifier. From a rather simple beginning, taking advantage of a series of discoveries and inventions through about a century of progress, there has evolved a clock whose stability is comparable with that of astronomical time itself, as heretofore defined in terms of the earth s rotation, and having a versatility far exceeding all other existing means for the precision measurement of time. http://www.hscrystal.biz/
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