Episode 153 - Hooke, Huygens, and the Hairspring

Published on Wed, 29 Sep 2021 19:58:52 -0700

Synopsis

The podcast discusses the history behind the invention of the hairspring, a crucial component in mechanical watches. It focuses on the controversy surrounding who should be credited for this invention - Christiaan Huygens or Robert Hooke. Huygens was initially credited, but recently discovered notes from 1670 show that Hooke presented the hairspring concept to the Royal Society years before Huygens. The hosts explore the politics and dynamics within the Royal Society at that time, suggesting that Hooke, who was considered an outsider and difficult to work with, may have been purposely denied credit due to his conflicts with influential members like Isaac Newton. The episode highlights how personal rivalries and cliques can shape the accreditation of important scientific discoveries.

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Transcript

Speaker
Andrew	Hello, fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 1420, the Watch Clicker podcast with your host, Andrew. I'm a good friend, Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you? I'm doing really well. Tell me more about that.
Everett	Yeah, I'm fine. I'm, uh, Excited about our episode. I'm excited to record with you. I've had a otherwise very uneventful week.
Andrew	Isn't that nice? I mean, it's Tuesday. So, I mean, up to this point, I'm sort of hoping that most people have had an uneventful week come Tuesday.
Everett	Yeah. No, uneventful is not bad. Just, yeah, I'm good, man. I'm feeling excited to I'm feeling excited to do this thing we're going to do. I'm feeling excited to drink these, uh, Natty Light Seltzers, Catalina Lime Mixer.
Andrew	It's the fucking Catalina Lime Mixer. Oh my, that's good. A little touch boozy, a little bit of lime, some black cherry. It's black cherry lime flavored. These Natty Light Seltzers, I didn't have exactly high hopes for them. Um, but I figured they'd go quickly because, you know, we drink beer while we're recording and, um,
Everett	Hmm 6% alcohol This is more than adequate. Very good. Yeah, it reminds me a little bit of the black cherry white claw a little bit.
Andrew	Yeah, I Assume these are keto friendly being that they're seltzer. Most most most seltzers. I didn't otherwise check.
Everett	No, no I was like a seltzer ever can drink these Yeah, uh, I am I am back on keto. I've sort of fully recovered enough from my surgery that I'm going to try to lose my injury weight. Is that like baby weight? It is. That's right. It is my pre baby weight goal. Yeah. I'm about a week into keto, which means that I can't, I can't fart. Uh, well you can for fear of repercussions.
Andrew	I was going to say you can, there's, there's some risk.
Everett	Uh, but yeah, uh, I'm doing really well. How about yourself?
Andrew	Good coming. I mean, this is the last full day of my two weeks of That's like two and a half weeks of vacation. So, lamenting that a little bit. But other than that, it's been, you know, it's been good. Just chilling at home and hanging out with the kids and the family. And yeah, I am not a complaint in the world.
Everett	So, I'm good. That's a good place to be. Yeah. No complaints is a good place to be.
Andrew	Yeah. You know, there's not complaints, you know. I recently, I got my heavy bag set up in the garage again and started working on the heavy bag. My six-year-old came out and saw what I was doing and got jacked. Oh yeah, he was into it. And he ran upstairs and got his like cotton, like winter cotton gloves that all the kids wear. Yeah, yeah. And he came outside with them and was like, I'm ready. I was like, what? Not exactly. You have to notice, you even at six, have to notice the very significant difference between the gloves that you are wearing and the gloves that I'm wearing. So I got him a pair of heavy bag gloves for kids. They have like a little goofy smiley face on them. And I got some mitts and I'm going to start introducing him to combat sports that I think are really going to be good for him. He's not really a team sport kid. Uh, he's independent, but he's also kind of a, kind of a baby. And that if he doesn't get his way, he's the kid who will sit down and pout. Today in flag football, he was running the ball and a kid took his flag, a much bigger kid. It's a first and second grade mixed team. And this kid, I've sent you pictures of him, but he's a big boy. He's a head and a half taller and probably 50 pounds heavier than Mark. And he took Mark's flag. And Mark walked up to him, chest puffed out, snatched the flag back from him and planted his palm in the center of this kid's chest and shoved him. And then did the like crab flex on the kid. And I was like, Oh my God, he's going to drive you into the earth like a nail. And the kid backed down. I was like, okay, maybe there's something here. Team sports just might not be for you. but combat sports might be there. So we're gonna give some of that a try and see if that's a better outlet for him.
Everett	Good times.
Andrew	Yeah, he's just not big enough to, I mean, apparently he's big enough to talk shit, but eventually he's gonna come across that kid who's not gonna back down and is gonna drive him into the earth like a nail. Yeah, well, you never know. I mean, kids need that, right? If you're gonna talk a big talk, you either be able to back it up or be really good at getting punched in the mouth.
Everett	Yeah. No, that's true. That's true. Well, Hey, I got a new watch. Do me. I got a new watch. I, uh, we, we have talked a couple of times recently about this company Divex, which is something. Yeah. They're, I think they're like a UK based dive equipment company, commercial dive equipment, equipment company. So kind of Gucci commercial dive stuff. But they have a couple of watches that they sell. These are white label watches, so I think they're sold under many other brands. Super Chinese. Yeah, I think that, I think, well, so the rumor is that these watches are actually produced by Seiko. And they have Seiko movements. I think they're the VX quartz movements. Anyway, there's a couple of them. We talked about the DiveX Pro 200 meter dive watch, I think, on our... It's gotta be three weeks or so ago. Yeah, cheap watches, I think. And I was gonna pick one of those up. I instead opted for a slightly different watch, so still one of these DiveX watches, but I got the Offshore 500 meter dive watch. So this is sort of a... shrouded tuna like tuna ish case. Um, it's a big watch. I think it's a 45 millimeter diameter, uh, short ish lug to lug maybe 48, 47, 48 on the lug to lug. I can't remember. Um, but it's this just crazy weird shrouded dive watch. Uh, 66 clicks, 500 meters of water resistance. Quartz. And I gotta tell ya, I'm totally enamored. I got this thing about a week ago and it has been on my wrist the entire time since then. Since I got it. I have not taken it off.
Andrew	For its size, I cannot believe how small and comfortable it wears. It doesn't wear, like, any bigger than a 40mm watch.
Everett	Yeah. I mean, maybe a little bit, but it doesn't have a, it doesn't feel ostentatious or, or clunky or chunky or any of those things that you would expect.
Andrew	It looks it, but it isn't. That's right. It doesn't feel it. It's, it's, it's kind of like, it's kind of weird.
Everett	And you know, quartz movement. So it's pretty thin. I got, I tracked it about 12 millimeters thick. It looks thicker than that because it's sort of slab sided. Yeah, it's got that shroud. Um, but yeah, it wears small. It, I just, I'm totally in love. It's got a, uh, the, the bezel is concave, I guess, to the height of the, the outside edge of the bezel. Uh, so it sort of slopes in towards the crystal, which is fun and different. Um, gosh, man, I just dig it. There's one thing I've noticed that's going to be a problem. It's got these very deep right angle crevices along the bezel and they're just going to.
Andrew	Oh, they're going to soak it up.
Everett	Yeah. Every single piece of dust and skin and everything else is going to get in there.
Andrew	So in about six months, that's going to be a totally flush vessel.
Everett	That's right. So I'm going to have to sort of think about how I want to clean that. I'll probably just give it a duster. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe, uh, you know, toothbrush occasionally. So it's 500 meters of water.
Andrew	Shit. Just pressure wash it.
Everett	Right. Yeah, I'm really just in love with this watch, which is crazy. You know, I spent about 200 bucks, so shout out to my friend, humping jalapeno, Omer.
Andrew	I think it's humping jalapenos.
Everett	Oh, yeah, that's what it is. I forgot. He helped me out with this. You know, you can find these in the US. I think they're about $370. However, they are significantly less than that in the UK. All things said and done, I think I spent just over $200 shipped to Omer, shipped to me. Um, I'm not suggesting that you reach out to Omer to buy one of these and have it shipped to you, but that's exactly what he is.
Andrew	And we'll have the, his home address and personal phone number in the show notes.
Everett	Uh, yeah. So I don't know that may be illegal. I don't know. Either way, the deed is done.
Andrew	I don't know why it would be illegal. Well, I mean, it's buying it through a third party.
Everett	Yeah.
Andrew	So that's not, and he helped buying it through an Etsy store.
Everett	So all things said and done under just over 200 bucks for this thing. I mean, it's one of the greatest watch purchases I've ever made. I got it on one of these Bonetto Centurini 284 straps, which this is my first experience with Bonetto Centurini. It's a, it's good. I'm really pumped. Yeah, Will's watch. Daddy. Daddy hooked me up with this. I think he just had one and wasn't using it for much. So, all things said and done, just totally pumped with this watch.
Andrew	Well, I'm pumped you're pumped because that is, it's a cool watch and it's something we've talked about. And quartz divers are the shit and totally needlessly water resistant watches are the shit. Totally needlessly, yeah. Shrouded. It's a win-win-win. I like that better than the SKX. Much, much more than the SKX.
Everett	Yeah, that's silly, but... I'm just telling you. It is really good. It is really good. So, uh, we'll see what happens. Um, I'm not going to sell it, obviously. Uh, well, I don't know. Maybe I will, but doubtful. I'll just have this weird 500 meter watch for forever and ever. Amen. 11 points, by the way, on the rubric for this one.
Andrew	Only 11, huh? That's right. Those extra 400 meters don't do much for you.
Everett	Yeah, that's right. One extra point for all 400 meters.
Andrew	You could sell it on the gray market here in America, being that they're more expensive in America.
Everett	I don't know what your exchange rate's looking like. There might be a little bit of a profit there, but I'm not doing that, obviously. I think that would be illegal, as if you were trafficking them. Yeah, that's right. To bypass whatever import laws. Yeah, that would definitely be illegal.
Andrew	I'm not with the DEA, so I don't think they care.
Everett	We've got an episode. This may take us 12 minutes, I think. That's probably what we're going to work on. I was thinking six or seven hours, but 12 minutes would be fine too. Record time. How do you feel about this kind of episode, Andrew?
Andrew	I like these episodes.
Everett	I get so excited about these episodes.
Andrew	You know why? It's because it's not just, it's not just, we're not just talking about watches and watches are fun, but we talk about watches all the time. We went to Portland Red Bart. We talked about watches. It was kind of exhausting, right? Because I'm like, I can only talk about vintage Rolex and Omega for so long before, number one, my well of knowledge dries up. And number two, I just lose interest. And that was kind of what Portland Red Bart was like. It was cool. I liked those guys. It was a super fun environment. It was a cool group of dudes to hang out with and talk watches. But this is the kind of watch talk that I really liked. Because it brings in all these other things. It ties this pretty little bow of all these important things that are happening in the world at the time around us and how they relate to our watches. Like these are these are bar anecdotes. Like if you want to if you want real watch nerd shit. We're talking about Mr. Hook and Hook's Law, and we're going to talk about how Sir Isaac Newton had a feud with him. which led to the misaccreditation of one of the most important inventions in horology. That's real Watch Nerd shit. And that's what we're doing tonight.
Everett	If you don't like this episode, fuck off. If you don't like this episode, feel free to tune into another channel because this, I think, well, I will say, I think this is what sets us apart from most of the other watch podcasts out there, right? That we do stuff like this, but also this is at the end of the day, this is what I would like our podcast to be all the time. So I could just tell when we were prepping for this, I was like, this is going to be so much fun.
Andrew	So yeah. Yeah. You nailed it. This was a, this was a good pitch. Cause I was coming up dry. I'm getting stuck in these ruts where I'm like, man, I want to talk about this. No, we can't talk about that. That's not a full episode. What about this? No, it's the same thing. Hmm. This that's the same fucking thing and then I'm stuck on it and I just can't that's whenever I text you that it's like I'm just stuck in this rut of I have one bad idea and I can't get away from it. It's just suck. It's just it's a magnet. It's pulling me to it, but we need to keep going first.
Everett	We must credit credit where credits do right because we don't come up with this stuff in a vacuum. We do a lot of research for these episodes, but we're always Inspired and then we're and then that inspiration is backed up by other things So I actually found an article by an author named franz of aura. I believe I'm saying that right? This is an article on truth about watches website Which I really like It's it's a one of these smaller Watch websites and you may have missed it even and if you have I urge you to check it out now But I found this article and I was like This is interesting. This is a story Uh, and the article was titled Robert Hook invented the hairspray, which is a title. That's a title.
Andrew	Yeah. Because in just reading it, it's not a statement. It's provocative. There's something there. That's not, it's not like newsflash. So-and-so accomplished something, an article titled something like that. Like, Ooh, we got scandal here.
Everett	Yeah, that's right. I'm telling you something and I want you to be challenged by it.
Andrew	And we bit hook, line and sinker.
Everett	So just a little bit about Rovara. He's a great writer. Uh, he's also the author of the watch manual and, and I believe he is the most prolific answerer of orology based questions on the website Quora, which Quora is one of those things like how does Quora exist, but it does. Who puts the questions there? I don't know who puts the questions. I do know who answers them. When they're related to watches, it's Robert Rovara. Also, I think SJX was the first, the website out of Singapore, I think SJX was the first to report on this. Specifically, Dr. Andrew Hildreth, who is a super legit journalist. He's written for Hodinkee and GQ and the New Yorker. He's the real deal. I think he actually broke the story. And in fact, we'll link to both in the show notes. Yes. But between the two, Hildreth's is the better article. So give credit to both of these guys. Hildreth's is certainly the better article. But I stumbled across the Rivara article first.
Andrew	And spoiler, the reason Hildreth's is the better article is because It's only recently that this news splash was validated.
Everett	Yeah, I think that's right. And I think- 2006. I think Hildreth is the one who kind of brought this topic to the light, at least in the context of horology. So, um, and, and he's, he's just an incredibly, you, you can read that article and realize, oh, this is the real deal. He's a real journalist. So, and SJX is just a great website too. So, so first, What's the what the hairspring, the hairspring, Andrew? We should talk about what the hairspring is because we're we have to at least pretend to talk about watches today.
Andrew	The hairspring is somewhere between a tear of a unicorn and a feather from a phoenix. It's bound by the laws of physics to power these machines that we wear.
Everett	It's just a mysterious, a mysterious thing. Nobody actually knows how it works. Well, we don't. Okay. And so that's true. We don't, but we, we've got some, we've got some ideas. So the hairspring, AKA the balance spring. Yes. Um, both, both terms, uh, mean the same thing, but what this is, is a spiral or helical spring. It's attached to portion spring, even more commonly known outside of watches attached to the balance wheel. And together they form an oscillator. It moves back and forth. You know that motion because you see it if you've ever looked at a watch movement. It is the heart of the watch. It is the thing that does the beating. And if you see an open heart watch, you will be looking at the hairspring or the balance spring.
Andrew	And what you're going to be looking at is that hairspring or balance spring. We're going to call it a hairspring for the balance. We're looking at the oscillation of the balance wheel, which is directly driving an impulse pin. This is a lot of stuff. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. And so what it's going to do is it's going to throw this your pallet fork, a whole other word. We could spend maybe an entire episode on each of these definitions. Do feel free to Wikipedia, YouTube, Google, because we're not the experts on this. Tons of great videos of this stuff online, too. We might even relink to that video that we linked to auto versus mechanical, because that that was perhaps the best animation of what exactly is happening here. And when explaining it with words only, it makes no sense.
Everett	Right. So words and pictures. Yeah. Driving the pallet fork.
Andrew	Back and forth. Pallet fork goes back and forth. Acts as a brake to time your beats. That's why you get those tiny little beats even in your mechanical releases. Super precise beats. Super precise.
Everett	Andrew, do you know how the regulator on your mechanical watch works? Not great. The regulator on a mechanical watch, so everybody's seen them, or if you've opened up your SKX, you've seen it. It's that little thing that you can turn it and it's got the plus and minus scale. So what that actually does, and I've just learned this, what that actually does is that shortens the effective length of the hairspring. So the hairspring relies on the tension to oscillate back and forth. The regulator shortens or lengthens that hairspring to affect the timing. And so they've just, you know, obviously they've got it all measured and they know basically how far it's going to be. But that's what you do. You change the effective length of the hairspring to change the timing of the oscillation. And now, you know, and knowing's half the battle.
Andrew	It is half the battle.
Everett	Real American hero.
Andrew	You know, honestly, we're, we're beyond our depths when we're talking about this. There are better people, but we just want to give, we want to gloss over these ideas, these super physics based ideas to, to provide some context for the bigger picture of the story. Sure. Smaller picture perhaps of the story that we're talking about.
Everett	So, so forgive us, right. Forgive me, certainly. But yeah, no, I agree with that. We're out of our depth and this is, This is we're not the best place for this stuff.
Andrew	However, we can say with confidence. The hairspring is sort of. The foundation of modern urology. Yeah, absolutely. It it was the technological advancement necessary. For subsequent leaps, and it could have occurred in the 1660s, or the 1960s. This was a linchpin toward, or a linchpin for, orological advancements.
Everett	Yeah, that's right. So Wikipedia credits, actually, Wikipedia credits the invention of the hairspring primarily to a fella named Christian Huygens. That's a Dutch name, and I'm doing the best I can. Dutch pronunciations require a lot of like, sounds, and rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I'm not going to do those. With that said, I think that Christiane Huygens is a relatively decent American English pronunciation of that, so we're going to go with that.
Andrew	I'm also going to asterisk your Wikipedia credits it with. Anybody can edit Wikipedia. I have a Wikipedia page. I'm seven feet tall, 220, and the picture is also really similar to Rob Gronkowski.
Everett	And interestingly enough, Wikipedia provides sort of a proverbial asterisk to that and gives partial credit, suspected credit perhaps, to Robert Hooke. One Sir Robert Hooke. One Sir Robert Hooke. Now both of these fellows are incredibly famous scientists and certainly in the realm of English science, these guys are giants, right? Both of them. And this odd dynamic here where Wikipedia is crediting one and sort of asterisking the other is interesting. But I think that this invention, which is, as you said, almost certainly the most important piece of modern, modern timekeeping, modern mechanical timekeeping, because obviously the quartz crystal is maybe more important. With that said, this is such a huge invention. I think this asterisk is our story today.
Andrew	It is our story today, and I think I maybe should circle back just for a brief moment. It is the next chapter. I don't know if I agree that it's one of the most important horological advancements. It's a change of a chapter when we go from pre-Hairspring to the modern era. I'm comfortable calling Hairspring mechanical watches the modern era of mechanical watches and watchmaking. There's been leaps and bounds of advancements and then we get quartz crystals, but I think that's it. A lot's changed, but also not so much.
Everett	So I've got an anecdote for you. This is not actually directly related to our story. This is a bit of an aside and a bit of an aside to the story, but I think it's a really important aside and I think it'll provide us some really good context for the rest of the story. Okay, you ready? Please. Okay. So this anecdote is about the inverse square law. Do you know what that is?
Andrew	In so much as I read our notes. Right.
Everett	So the inverse square law is this theory, um, you know, attributed to Newton, uh, famously that essentially states that the, you can calculate any sort of, uh, specified force or physical quantity, by inversely squaring the distance from the source. So it's an inverse square proportion to the source of the power. So we use this for all sorts of things. We use this to... Well, I don't. Yeah, that's right. Me either. But famously, this inverse square law allowed us to understand what was happening with orbits, planetary orbits in relation to gravity, right? So this is, as I said, famously credited to Newton. But in the 17th century, as Newton published his very, very famous Principia, one of the most famous scientific writings of all time,
Andrew	I'm not familiar.
Everett	This, this fellow, Robert Hook, basically the entire time kicks and screams and says, that is not Newton's. That is mine.
Andrew	The story goes one afternoon at a coffee house, just probably a bath house, coffee house, brothel combo, perhaps, perhaps the 1660s 17th century England, right?
Everett	Robert Hook is hanging out with his buddies, Edmund Howie and Christopher Wren. That's what cool people do. As you do. And claim to have, he claims to Christopher Wren and Howie that he has done the math and challenged them basically to figure it out regarding the inverse square law. So Howie, good friends with Isaac Newton, Well, they all are because they're all part of the Royal Society. These guys are all homies. That's right. So Hallie goes to Newton and says, Hey, Bob says he's figured this thing out. What do you think? And Newton's like, well, yeah, I figured it out too. So Hallie really likes Newton, but Hook has got this reputation for being sort of loud mouth, just a dickhead. right? He's just a dickhead. So he rubs people wrong. Uh, so Hallie goes to Newton. Newton is like, yeah, I've done the math. So how is like, we'll write it down. So Newton starts writing it down and as he's writing it down, Robert Hooke gets wind of this, gets pissed. They start fighting this kind of public feud about this thing. Um, and, and Newton kind of recedes and he's like, I'm not publishing. This isn't worth it. Hallie, sort of walks him through it. His diplomacy is sort of responsible for getting the publishing work done. He's, you know, the man behind the behind the screen grinding the gears. And eventually, three years later, Newton publishes and really hooks like, you know, this jealous miserly son of a bitch, and he throws a temper tantrum. And and they have this feud, this letter feud You know, really, we all know. It's how the Revolutionary War was started. Newton gets credit, right? Halley liked Newton, Brighton liked Hooke, and eventually talks Newton into publishing, and now we have the most important development in all of science.
Andrew	All caps. There's also a character that we're not going to talk much about today, but it's pivotal to these accreditation issues. His name is Henry Oldenburg.
Everett	Yeah, the Royal Society.
Andrew	Henry Oldenburg was a fellow of the Royal Society who was the secretary of the Royal Society during this time period. Now, the Royal Society was a think tank, continues to be such. It is a, at the pleasure of the crown, society of the greatest minds of the era. who come together and just think shit out. Henry Oldenburg is pivotal to all of the drama at this period. Henry Oldenburg did not take good notes, nor did he keep good track of his notes.
Everett	So bottom line, we've got an outsider in Hook. He's sort of an insider outsider. He's the guy that everybody tolerates, no one likes. He's a big asshole. And even if he had actually done the math, this Royal Society scientific community is sort of committed to keeping him out of the game. Okay. So, so end of anecdote, right? We can move on.
Andrew	Well, Newton's a future president and it's an annual election. He served as president for 20 some years.
Everett	That's right. So, so let's talk a little bit about Robert Hooke. Cause the thing is this dude's a legit genius, right? He's, he's sort of born to modest means son of a deacon or something. Um, expected to go or a church rector or something like that, expected to go sort of in the same path, but his dad dies when he's pretty young and his dad leaves him 40 pounds, 40 great British pounds. I assume they were called great British pounds. Um, which at the time was a modest sum of money. Um, and, and I think the thought was hook would use this for vocational training. you know, to become... Go to seminary or something. Become a watchmaker perhaps, right? That's what people did with 40 pounds. But instead, this dude's got a great brain on him. So he takes his money to Westminster and studies. And he kind of kicks ass. Incredibly successful. Classic polymath, just like us. Yeah, just like us. He uses his studies to become one of the world's greatest scientists and architects. Accurately credited with all sorts of developments, right?
Andrew	Yeah. Hooke's Law, which is still a recognized bit of urology, has to do with isochronism, which is basically the science and the physics that says your hairspring will behave in the way that it's supposed to behave because of the physical actors on it.
Everett	Stuff outside urology too, right? I think he was like the first to visualize a micro-organism. Um, he built like the first Gregorian telescope, which I don't know exactly what that is, but it's, uh, like a mirror based telescope, um, instrumental in rebuilding London after the great fire of.
Andrew	Yeah. Cause he was an architect. He did all the surveys after the great London fire.
Everett	Multiple sources credit hook with the invention of the anchor escapement. And furthermore, as we will discuss today, hook is almost certainly the inventor of the hairspring. It's his. It's a little bit of context. You brought up, um, you, you, you brought up our, our secretary, but let's, let's talk a little bit about the 17th century. Cause it was fucking nuts.
Andrew	It was bananas.
Everett	So, you know, we have computers in the 20th century, second part of this 20th century, um, you know, which is maybe going to be one of the most important things The 17th century was the same, right? You know, we had this incredible mashup of technology and brain, all sort of coalescing. You know, there's all these ideas floating. There's the technology to flesh out the ideas and all these willing participants.
Andrew	And economies sufficient to support that kind of thing. That's right. We're in a renaissance of philosophy and science in this point, which is weird to think, you know, in the 17th century as a renaissance of science, but that's where we're at. I mean, some of the greatest scientific discoveries in history come from this period.
Everett	Absolutely. And just like with the modern era, you know, computers, there are only X amount of truly amazing discoveries. And because of the way competition works and you know, the way people talk, you've got multiple people sort of all working on the same thing, right?
Andrew	Yes. I was just going to say in the Royal Society, you have these groups of colleagues who are all working in similar fields towards similar goals, maybe competitors. I'm going to get there faster. I'm going to challenge you to figure this out before I do. So there's some misunderstandings in accreditation at this point. And there's, Something you said for the politics behind, you know, who knows who in the Royal Society and who's friends with who as to who gets credit.
Everett	That's right. These things don't happen in a vacuum. And in this particular instance, we've got history accrediting primarily Christiane Huygens with the development of the Hairspring.
Andrew	And all of Isaac Newton's friends, man.
Everett	Right. So Huygens, so let's talk a little bit about Huygens. Who's not an asshole.
Andrew	Not an asshole. Also a genius, but most importantly for our context today, not an asshole.
Everett	And unlike Cook, born to privilege. So son of a diplomat, dad was friends with Galileo, Descartes. The slubs. And additionally, Huygens on his own is this super smart kid, right? Instantly talented. And his upbringing, his sort of polished curated upbringing makes him a perfect fit with this aristocratic society of 17th century England. So as a result, he quickly becomes friends with important people, people like Newton. He's in the right place, right at the right time, looks the part, talks the part. He's in the group, right? He's Dutch, that doesn't matter.
Andrew	He'd have been friends with me, right?
Everett	Huygens is described as one of the most important scientists of the scientific revolution and is fairly credited with all sorts of things, including the invention of the pendulum clock. Yeah. He publishes this book in 1673. It's a long title in Latin, but the main part of the title is Orologium Oscillatorium. The full title translates to, I believe, I'm going to read this. the pendulum clock, colon, or geometrical demonstrations concerning the motion of pendula as applied to clocks. So you would think this might be kind of a niche, right? We think of horology, right? The people who are listening to this are weird, right?
Andrew	Yeah. You're listening to us talk about watches and the story about people who did things about watches.
Everett	At the time, Watches and time were anything but niche, right? This is very, very important. And this book, the Orologium Oscillatorium, goes down eventually as one of the three most important scientific revolution books, along with Galileo's Two New Sciences and Newton's, the aforementioned Newton's Principia. So we got three books that come out of the scientific revolution that are widely seen as the most important Horlogium oscillatorium is one of those. The pendulum clock is problematic though, right? I won't call it flawed, but it's problematic. It's got things. It's got things, that's right. Even to the extent you could make a pendulum clock small enough to be carried, pendulums rely on gravity.
Andrew	Yeah.
Everett	So you have to keep them upright.
Andrew	It's like carrying a very full martini.
Everett	Exactly. It's walking around with a full martini. That's perfect. And furthermore, imagine sitting on or perhaps standing on the deck of a ship holding a full martini, right? It's just not going to work. So the pendulum clock has limited in its use. In a vacuum, it's going to do great things in any sort of real life scenario. So we haven't got there. It's not going to be the solution that wins the day.
Andrew	However, how do we power that pendulum without gravity?
Everett	In this 1973 book, Huygens outlines roughly without any illustrations. Not 1973. 1673. Nailed it. He outlines this. Yeah, well, first, he does all sorts of other stuff, right? So he makes one of the three most important books of the scientific revolution, but also Huge in optic development, mechanics, astronomy, etc.
Andrew	Like all these guys, they're all fucking good at everything. There's nobody like them anymore.
Everett	That's right. He's referred to as the very first theoretical physicist due to him being the first to mathematize an unobservable mechanical phenomena, right? So he's the super important guy. But really, he's legit.
Andrew	He's legit. It's perfectly reasonable that this be attributed to him because it's
Everett	within the realm of possibility that he came up with it when that gets us that gets us to our next portion right, because in the oscillatorium for the his book, he outlines without any specifics. We're just going to call it how how he outlines this oscillation based movement. He discusses it. Nineteen seventy-three sixteen seventy-three.
Andrew	Well, just before the court's revolution, the hairspring was
Everett	So I'm sure these folks are tired of listening to me talk. Can you please, for the love of God, Andrew, tell me about the fucking hairspring already?
Andrew	No, I still don't get it.
Everett	So until very recently, history credits Huygens with this invention, right?
Andrew	As we've discussed very recently, and we're talking in the last two decades, and it is because Huygens went to the Royal Society and said, this is mine. Because after the publishing of Ho, 1675, so just two years after he published this, he sent a letter. So an important part of Huygens and our German friend, who was the liaison to foreign editors, he sent a letter to the journals illustrating his regulator with a spring forming the regulator. We now know it as the hairspring. He drew it. He sent them out.
Everett	He sent his letters. Legit illustration. Yes. And a beautiful illustration.
Andrew	Letter campaign of it. Hook went ballistic.
Everett	Apeshit. Apeshit. Ballistic wasn't, that word wasn't invented.
Andrew	And that's a word that I'm going to give credit to our first credited article, but that's the word I would have used. Because he went fucking wild. His usual tantrum of, that's my idea, that's my idea, I did that first. He spent years proclaiming that it was his. He went so far as to petition the Royal Society for the minutes from the letters that he sent in.
Everett	Yeah, so that's important, right? He says, I made this presentation to you and it will be in your minutes. But here's the problem.
Andrew	And here's a problem I see with that, which is rectified later. He was responsible for taking people's, when they would send letters in, Hook was, when people would send in their science, Hook was responsible for performing their science in front of the society. So, you know, there's a, there's some questionable there. It's just a little, little sus. He insisted though, that there was proof. He went through the letters, he, but they, there were, they were nowhere to be found.
Everett	Nowhere to be found. More controversial than nowhere to be found. The Royal Society admits at the time, we can't find We can't find the minutes where that presentation should be.
Andrew	Which is a little suspish.
Everett	A little sus.
Andrew	Given that the Secretary is friends with the President, who's friends with the guy who's now taking credit for it. Meanwhile, asshole Sir Robert Hooke is saying, No, motherfuckers! This is mine! This is mine!
Everett	I did this! But he's done this before, right? We know Hooke. This is kind of his thing. This is kind of his thing. So I think some people are interested, and it's certainly captivating that the Royal Society's lost the minutes, but it's like, okay, well, hooks being a hook again, right? Exactly. But in 2006, a treasure trove. 330 years later. Yes.
Andrew	A treasure trove of documents was discovered.
Everett	By literal treasure hunters. Yes.
Andrew	Among those were the minutes. Not the final minutes, because those are still lost, and they were certainly set on fire, because... By Isaac Newton and or Oldenburg. Yeah, because Robert Hooke was an asshat, and nobody liked working with him. But the draft minutes, the outlines, the notes that were taken to prepare the final minutes were discovered that show unequivocally Robert Hooke did make this presentation to the Royal Society first.
Everett	In 1670, five years prior to Huygen's presentation. Three years prior to the publishing of Ho. Three years prior to Ho, five years prior to the letter where he illustrates this thing, right? Yes. And so this is really very, very interesting, right?
Andrew	There's some problems. Talk to me. Hooks was not as elegant. It was harder to make in practice. Right, because it included a second spring, right? Yeah, there were some things about it. But the idea, the first practical idea, it was possible. It was producible. It wasn't as practical. And it wasn't as functional. But the idea and the first iteration lie solely with Hook, as made evident by the official handwritten minutes by the Secretary of the Royal Society, as discovered in 2006.
Everett	So this folio, they discover this package of notes, right? It's this house in South England. They find these notes,
Andrew	And who the fuck's house was? That's the thing about the UK, is you just find these treasure troves. It's like, oh yeah, we found thousands of Civil War uniforms from the American Civil War. They're in mint condition. In Berkshire.
Andrew	They're just in an attic. You know, we just had them in a trunk.
Everett	Like why aren't, what? What? So this thing was auctioned, was set to be auctioned for in excess of a million pounds. Um, I think a million, a million pounds, I think the Royal society eventually made a deal to buy them before they went to auction for just south of a million pounds, um, in 2006 or seven. Um, but the question, you know, I was like, well, this doesn't make any fucking sense, right? If these are hooks notes and if he's got the minutes, why didn't he present them? And this is maybe the moral of this story. So. What we know from the notes themselves is that Hook's hatred for Oldenburg, the secretary, again, of the Royal Society, best homies with Isaac Newton, really good homies with Huygens, is that Hook had developed this deep and, as we know, probably justified distrust of the clique, as I'm going to call them. Yeah, the cool kids.
Andrew	The cool kids. To be a nerd outcast in a herd of nerds is like something special.
Everett	Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. So Hook is so convinced that these people are trying to screw him over that at the time of the presentation he steals Oldenburg's draft minutes. Which is why the real minutes never came to be. Almost certainly. Almost certainly. So Hook steals these minutes and apparently, or maybe the best postulation is that he forgot to put them back. He steals these minutes to copy them and never puts them back, which is why they never get transcribed, which is why they don't exist, and which is why five years later, When he's kicking and screaming. Cause he's too busy going scorched earth on everyone. There are no minutes. And, furthermore, for fear of recrimination, Hook can't even reveal his draft notes. And so he's fucked. Hung by his own petard, as they say, hoisted by his own petard, as Shakespeare would say, denied his place in history. Until very recently. It sort of makes you wonder about the inverse square law, right?
Andrew	It makes you wonder about all of the attribution for the discoveries of the era. Yeah. Who was just homies with Isaac? You know, like, let's find all the people crying wolf from the Royal Society from 1660 to 1680. How many of them were burned or plagiarized by the cool kids. The moral of the story is get in with the cool kids because that's how you succeed.
Everett	Get in with the cool kids and or don't be a dick. But you know there's other so we've talked about Hook as this real son of a bitch and I think he probably was right. He's famous for having feuded with his own business partners saying really publicly really mean things But there's also stories about Hook being this wonderful friend and this fantastic scholar. And, you know, the genesis of this story is that he's sitting down at coffee with Wren and Hallie. You know, it's not like he's disliked.
Andrew	Did they invite him to coffee or did he see them there? Right.
Everett	He's just like, Hey guys. Yeah. Hey guys, Ember Squirrella. Do it. That part of the story isn't told. And the story is maybe fictionalized too, perhaps, perhaps by Huygen and Newton subsequently, right? So we don't know or not not Huygen. Halley. Halley and Newton subsequently. We don't know that, right? We don't know what we don't know. But yeah, the moral of the story is be cool.
Andrew	And if you find a guy like this, he's going scorched earth on everyone. Don't keep fucking him over because Hook spent a significant period of his life trying to discredit all of the people who fucked with him. He wrote just like vitriol letters about Oldenburg through the rest of his life. This motherfucker doesn't know anything. This guy didn't contribute anything. Cause he stole his notes. Yeah. No, just a lot of hatred from, you know, one of the most brilliant, brilliant minds and a game changer in neurology. That's what I'm talking about. Bring the hate.
Everett	Bring the hate.
Andrew	And the moral of this story is that neckbeard is as old as horology itself.
Everett	We talked about the original neckbeard, perhaps. The original horological neckbeard. It's him. He's the guy. When Kaz from Two Broke Watch Snobs does his neckbeard voice, that is exactly how Robert Hooke sounded when he talked.
Andrew	The one and only Sir Robert Hooke. I think we're done. Well, sort of. I mean, we've hit the high points.
Everett	Yeah, I think we've done this story justice. I hope so. What do you guys think? There's just crickets.
Andrew	There's crickets. No response. Man, you should have hit the applause button. That was the time.
Everett	If ever there was, that was it. Look, you guys, so we'll move on here. But if you like this kind of episode, I think this is really fun. I think we did a really good job on it. I think you should share it with the world. Look, there are about a thousand of you that listen every week. We know that. Science tells us that. I think that there are more people that could and should be listening. So tell your friends. Tell your mom. Tell your stepdad. Tell your brother, your sister. and your granddaughter. Andrew other things, what do you got?
Andrew	I didn't feel like that was over. I was I was trying to figure out like I was just going to keep like what was going to happen next. I don't know. I thought maybe you were going to follow it up or something. So I have been looking for a pair of over ear headphones. Yeah, that were cheap. It's a break I don't lose things, but I break them.
Everett	You don't want the MDR-7506s?
Andrew	I like them, but here's the thing. I want them to work out in. Oh, these are not working out headphones. So I wanted wireless over-ear headphones and I don't like, I wanted wireless headphones. I don't like AirPods. I don't like earbuds. I don't like things that go into my ear. I spend a lot of hours of my life with things in my ears. Uh, like my left ear is just kind of perpetually bruised from having an earpiece in. So I try to not have finger quote earpiece on my right ears bruised from something else. Ever. It's been lonely.
Everett	Um, ever since that knee injury.
Andrew	Yeah. So I wanted to over your headphones. And I did like just kind of a really basic, let's find something cheap. Let's try it out. Cause that's kind of my jam. I buy something cheap and if it works, I do some research on the cheap shit. And if the cheap thing does what I want it to do and does it adequately, I'm down with it. If not, I will buy the expensive thing. So I got a pair of Sony WH-CH51. Hold on, let me get my pen. And I think they're $40 on Amazon. They're a pair of Bluetooth over-ear speakers or over-ear headphones with a 35-hour battery life. It says up to 35, which is, we can say conservatively, 25 hours. And I can't imagine a scenario where I'm going to wear them for 25 hours without having an opportunity to charge them. So that's adequate. They also have a microphone, and I've not tried their Bluetooth capability for phone calls. Maybe I'll call you tomorrow. Tomorrow morning to test that out. But they're super comfortable.
Everett	Yeah, that's the that's it, right? That's the biggest thing.
Andrew	They're not. They're not big, right? They're not. They're not studio over ear headphones. They're on on ear on ear headphones, but they're not squish on ear because I've had on ear headphones that are just like Press your ears into the side of your head. There's adequate padding such that they don't, you don't feel squish. Perfectly adequate sound quality. I cranked these up and listening to Britney Spears telling me that I got to work for it, which is like it, it rumbled. I've played the gamut of music through them while working out in them. They're great. For 40 bucks, if you're still, if you're in the market for over ear or on ear, this is a pretty low risk purchase.
Everett	And that was kind of how I was thinking. $40 is right in that range where you start to really find decent.
Andrew	Yeah, that was kind of my thing. Like going less than that, you're just going to find shit. I didn't want to go more than that for my cheap purchase because I break them. And if they break, my feelings aren't hurt. They charge super easy. They come with a USB. They don't come with a with a wall dock. So you got to have a USB something, which is fine to plug it into. And I have USB outlets throughout the house for charging. So it's not problematic for me. But everyone can you you can unplug your phone cord in the morning and plug it in and you're good. But 40 bucks and they're they're working for me. I'm the only thing that concerns me and this concerns me with all headphones is their sweat resistance. I don't know how they're going to hold up over time and I don't know if.
Everett	Are they like at least like IP6 or something?
Andrew	There's no. So no. There's no indication of that.
Everett	They're quote-unquote WR with no number after it.
Andrew	Yeah. So, you know, if I blow out or short out one of them, I will update you guys from the sweat. But they inherently don't make me sweaty. What I do in them makes me sweaty. They're worth the risk if you're looking for on-ear, over-ear. Super lightweight. They're articulating. And I have a tiny head. And in their smallest setting, they fit me perfectly. You do have a tiny head.
Everett	Little dome. Where is it five and three eighths hat? Five and a quarter. Okay. It's because of the hair.
Andrew	Yeah.
Everett	I've got another thing. Do me. So I've got, I started a new show this week.
Andrew	Kim and I started a new show called 40 in 20 that watch clicker podcast. That's right. That's hosted by Andrew and his good friend Everett
Everett	I started a show, so we got Apple TV, I told you this, right? You did. We got Apple TV primarily for Ted Lasso. Okay. And, you know, it's just one of the new stream networks, right? You've already used Ted Lasso. So, all cut up on Ted Lasso. Season two is getting weird, guys. But we started the show that I've not really heard anything about. I've heard kind of people mention it in the past, but hadn't really heard enough to kindle my interest. But it looked good, right? It looked weird, but also good. It's this literally post-apocalyptic setting. It's called Lost. It's called C. It's called C. And the premise is this pandemic in the 21st century kills off almost everybody.
Andrew	It's too real, man.
Everett	And those that it doesn't kill off, it leaves blind. So basically for many, many years, and I don't know in the show yet how many years, but for many, many years, Everybody on earth is blind, completely blind. They can't see. Um, the show is set in, um, I, I want to say Pennsylvania anyway, somewhere, uh, in that area. And, uh, it's this, they're like, uh, tribes, right. But they'll throw in like record players and dams, hydroelectric dams and, um, stars, Jason Momoa. It's got probably no one else you will know, or at least know well. Jason Momoa being sort of a mediocre actor. Oh, it's also got Alfred Woodard, who's been in 8 billion things. And you're like, where do I know that lady from? Because I know her from everything. But she's really good. We are five or six episodes in now. It's so good. Kim was like, Hey, I want to watch an episode of siege. And I was like, man, I'm sorry, I'm recording. And she was like, man, that's so disappointing. I've been looking forward to it. And I kind of feel the same way.
Andrew	Like, you know, it means the fucking worst.
Everett	Jason Momoa is a borderline awful actor, but he's beautiful, really wonderful to look at how much time he's been without a shirt.
Andrew	70 90% just enough, right?
Everett	It's just the right amount, right? Uh, and you know,
Andrew	Water resistance to these headphones.
Everett	He plays, it's a perfect character for Jason Momoa. Um, you know, and it's just really good, man. You know, spoiler alert, there are these kids and they can see, okay.
Andrew	You know, I've seen trailers for this and there was no indication that these people could not see. I, and maybe there is in the trailers and I've thought about getting Apple TV just because of this, because of Jason Momoa. And I, you know, I just, I look forward to seeing him without a shirt on. Um,
Everett	I'm going to recommend it. Come for the Ted Lasso, stay for the sea. So far so good.
Andrew	I'm into it. All the trailers for every Apple TV show just look phenomenal. We were watching TV, just regular-ass TV. I was watching football on Saturday and an Apple TV trailer series came on and Sam was like, we need to get Apple TV.
Everett	fucking saying. You totally need to get Apple TV. I don't know if you totally need to, but I do. I consume a lot of television. I think long term they're doing good things. So there'll be some opportunities.
Andrew	They're kind of where Netflix was like about a two years before their prime, I think when like Netflix really started hitting it. And Netflix is a little bit on the down in their purchasing. Cause Netflix, I think has gone away from original content to, or from what are they calling it? exclusive content versus original content. They're buying shows as opposed to producing them.
Everett	I've heard people lament Netflix. I think Netflix has a ton of content right now.
Andrew	Netflix is doing a lot of good shit, but they're also doing a lot of purchasing of like, yeah, this will sell.
Everett	Sweet tooth, man. That was so good. Anyway, uh, Apple TV, see Jason Momoa. No shirt. I'm in. Don't stop. Get it. Get it.
Andrew	Yeah.
Everett	Andrew, is there anything you want to add today? Just one thing. Please.
Andrew	I don't like to be this guy. Yeah, you do. No, I don't. I'm actually, like, reticent here. iTunes ratings matter for whatever reason. If you enjoy what you're listening to, if you enjoy hanging out with us and cracking beer and talking about adjacent watch shit, Hit iTunes, give us a rating. If it's one star because we suck, I don't know why you're still listening. That's maybe a commentary on you more than it is on us. But if you like us, rate us, leave a comment. We read them way more than we should. It helps us out because they're are outlets out there who are ghosts. They don't exist anymore. Who still rate higher than us for whatever reason.
Everett	And who people will still say, oh, you got to check these guys out. It's like, well, those guys haven't made an episode in six months. Like, what are you talking about? A year.
Andrew	Head over to iTunes. Rate us. Subscribe. leave us a review if you want even at us or even leave show recommendations as you review. I don't think iTunes can analyze what you wrote in the review so much as the storage and an actual written review. We would really appreciate it. We do what we do because we love doing it. We love sharing it with people. And nothing brings us more joy than bringing more people into the fold of this bullshit world filled with neck beards that we get to talk about cool shit with.
Everett	And I think just as much as an Apple review, if you listen to one of our episodes and you think that was really fun and I really liked it, feel free to share it, right? You know, we've seen this thing happen and you've seen this thing happen where, you know, just like our friend Huygens, if you're in the click, You're going to get the word spread. And if you're not, you're not. And part of that is people saying, Hey, these guys are doing something interesting and you might want to check it out. So tell your friends if you like this episode, or if you like another episode in the future, share it. That's so it's, it's one of those things that, um, we don't make any money. You don't have to be feel bad about shilling us. I think, um, tell your friends, man, honestly, we're, we're, uh, we're trying to get to more ears.
Andrew	And that's it. And the more ears we get to, the more people come to us that you want to talk to. People like Mike from Orion, Mike France, Nick Mankey, the folks from Wellsboro. Those people come to us because we've got some credibility in the way of the people who like us. And that's how we get more people like that.
Everett	share us so that we can get more people that you want to hear because then we know that you don't like listening to just us we know that that's that's a foregone conclusion that was fun that was good hey thanks you guys for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20 the watch clicker podcast feel free to check us out on instagram at 40 and 20 at the watch clicker you can also check us out on the website watch clicker.com that's where we post weekly reviews mostly weekly reviews articles, all sorts of other good stuff. We've got, you know, a big handful of writers contributing at this point. So that's a good stuff. Lots of variety. If you want to support the watch clicker and or 40 and 20, you can do so at patreon.com slash 40 and 20 guys. Look, it helps. We're going to use that money for something pretty cool here coming up. Um, but we use it every month for hosting and all sorts of other stuff. So much appreciated if you're already a patron and if you want to support us for a month or two, just to say, hi, thanks. We'd love it. Don't forget to tune back in next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like.
Andrew	Bye bye.