Independents

Of course once the seconds are out of phase, the eventual re-phasing or re-synching of the escapement/balances will not cause the seconds to re-align.  The escapement/balance/seconds hand which has advanced relative to the other will stay ahead - it's just that the escapement/balances will have gone back into sync and are beating together again.  One of the benefits of the resonance set up - so I understand - is that because the two escapements are coupled in whatever way that happens to hold them beating together, the whole system is less adverse to shocks.  I'm not sure about position errors but I would think that the Resonance is less prone given the coupling (ie, in some watch positions, the escapements are in opposite positions relative to their own balance springs, yet still beat in time) .

One interesting question is what happens if one of the escapements would run +2 a day if outside of the resonance set up and the other one would run at -2 a day if outside the resonance set up.  Would the watch then run at 0 (ie, both escapements would meet in the middle at beat at +-0) or would one cause the other to follow (so both escapements would run at -2 or +2), or some other effect?  The way the Duality is set up, I think the answer in the above example is that the averaging would cause the watch to run at 0 (although I'm not sure if it is geared that way - it may be a "weighted" average where one escapement is "dominant").  The position of the balances in the Duality would also mean that shocks in certain directions would not have opposite effects on the escapements.  (For only mild shocks, the resonance set up has the advantage that the escapements would hold each other in sync whereas for heavier shocks the seconds hand would show that the watch has suffered a shock and gone out of sync.  I'm not sure if the Duality set up is better in these scenarios - the impression (okay, "wild stab in the dark") is that the Duality would depart from the standard/atomic time reference more easily - ie mild shocks - but not as much as the Resonance where there was a heavy shock, but the disadvantage is that you would not know that your Duality was off unless you compared it to the time reference.)       

Wild rambling over.

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