Chronograph
Cronógrafo
- Date
- 1816-1821 · confidence medium
- Place
- Paris, Île-de-France, France
- Credited to
- Nicolas Mathieu Rieussec (with Louis Moinet's claim)
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A watch that marks with ink on a rotating dial the start and end of an interval, which can be read afterwards. Rieussec created it in 1821 to time horse races and it gave rise to the modern chronograph, which starts and stops a hand.
Louis Moinet built in 1816 a 'compteur de tierces' that measured fractions of a second for astronomical observations, rediscovered in 2013; Rieussec is the patent and first commercial application (1821), so priority is disputed.
What it led to
- sports and laboratory timing
- wrist and pilot chronographs
- measurement of short time intervals without the eye's intervention