Horological Meandering

In the context of a watch it usually indicates a hand that does not make a complete circle, but rotates through some fraction and then jumps back to the start, rather then continuing. A good example is this blancpain



the second hand, just above 6 o'clock, takes 30 seconds to cover that arc, and then jumps back to start again

A

THIS MIGHT BE A STUPID QUESTION, BUT WHAT IS THIS FUNCTION USED FOR?

...needs to snap back to the start to continue.

Retrograde display can be found on watches to tell the current hours, minutes, seconds, date, day of week, second time zone, etc.

In the example below, the date is a retrograde date.  At the end of day "31", the hand will, in a blink of an eye, snap back to "1" around midnight.

Blue

Thanks for posting here!

If I try to answer your question very literally, I have to say that the best answer I can come up with is that the primary function of retrograding hands is to amuse the owners of the watches.  There's really no pure functional reason that I can think of to have retrograding hands -- perhaps other than squeezing in an indication that wouldn't fit if it had to occupy the entire dial.  For a central date hand, for instance, it's OK to have the numerals 1 to 31 all the way around the edge of the watch, but it can be equally attractive to have the dates cover only a portion of the circumferance of the dial, leaving the remander free for other things (or nothing).

And, it's fun to watch the hand snap back!

Best,

Gary G

The minute hand on the Right Hand Side, snaps back, after reaching 60 minutes.

No message body

the minute hand does 180 degrees then snaps back to 0 as the hour changes.

hope that helps

Graham

..... retrograde meant going back to when an A meant getting a 92% or better instead of the modern lax 90%.