Dan
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Resonance...
I will try to explain the historical reasons that led me to build such or such a watch. As far as the resonance phenomenon is con-cerned, the intuition that energy is dissipated without being lost goes back to the 18th century and the research performed by the great chemist Lavoisier, who stated in his famous theory which highlights my modest explanations: "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed". With the invention of the pendulum, watchmakers noticed that their beat often inter-fered with their environment and it was not unusual for a pendulum clock to stop of its own accord when the pendulum came into resonance with the driving-weight suspended from its cords.
Antide Janvier (1751-1835) appointed "horloger-m?canicien" to the King of France. Louvre Museum, Paris.
Resonance regulator by French watchmaker Antide Janvier, dated circa 1780
The first to have the feeling that one might turn this disadvantage into an asset was the brilliant watchmaker Antide Janvier, or "mechanical engineer" as he described himself, born in 1751 in St. Claude, France. His idea was to build two complete movements with two precision escapements and to place them close to each other, ensuring that the two pendulums were hanging from the same construction. Just as he imagined, the pendulums recovered the energy dissipated by each other and began to beat together, thus entering into resonance.
Souveraine Collection - Chronom?tre ? r?sonance F. P. Journe Invenit et Fecit
The only wristwatch functioning with the phenomenon of resonance created by F.P. Journe.
Maintained by this wave and thus protected from outside vibrations, this principle considerably enhanced their precision. About 1780, Antide Janvier built two precision regulators, one of which is preserved at the Paul Dupuy Museum in Toulouse and the second in the private collection of Montres Journes SA, Geneva. A third desk-top regulator is kept in the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva.
Thirty years later, Abraham-Louis Breguet built a resonance regulator for Louis XVIII, King of France, which is now part of the collection of the Mus?e des Arts et M?tiers in Paris; and a second for the King of England, Georges IV, which is housed in Buckingham Palace.
He also made a pocket watch based on the same principle for each of these illustrious figures. To my knowledge, no one else in watchmaking took any fur-ther interest in this fascinating physical phenomenon!
The advantages of this phenomenon in terms of precision led me to pursue my own personal research and attempts which, after fifteen years, enabled me to adapt it to a wristwatch for the second model in the Souveraine collection: the Resonance Chronometer. I felt that this resonance system was particularly well-suited to the various wrist movements that subject watch mechanisms to repeated jarring which is detrimental to their smooth running.
Article republished courtesy of The Antiquorum Vox Magazine. Thank you to the author, Fran?ois-Paul Journe.
Dan