Pendulum clock
Reloj de péndulo
- Date
- 1656 · confidence high
- Place
- The Hague, Netherlands
- Credited to
- Christiaan Huygens (built by Salomon Coster); earlier idea by Galileo
- People
- 👤 Christiaan Huygens1629–1695
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A clock regulated by an isochronous pendulum, which cut the daily error from 15 minutes to 15 seconds. It turned time into a quantity of scientific precision.
Galileo conceived the pendulum clock around 1637–1641, and his son Vincenzo sketched it in 1649 without completing it; Huygens built and patented one in 1657. Huygens published the theory in Horologium Oscillatorium (1673).
What it led to
- Precision astronomy and the Paris and Greenwich observatories
- The timing of experiments and Newtonian physics
- Domestic wall clocks and longcase clocks
- The search for longitude through clockwork