Every video I see on some introduction to time-keeping history says things changed when quartz was discovered. I remember commercials for watches actually bragging in marketing campaigns about quartz time-keeping or whatever it is called. I don’t know what about quartz (is it an element) made it so important for keeping accurate time.
Also, I wasn’t sure what flair to put this under. I can add another if someone has a better suggestion.
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IIRC from my courses of physics, the “old” way to keep time, was to keep a fraction of the tropical year 1900. However, this was unprecise and could, on longer time periods, have massive implications.
Quartz crystal is much better because they use it’s natural oscillation frequency (when subjected to electrical current) as a time standard. According to calculations, it’s much more precise than the old way. And compared to a standard pendulum for example, the quartz crystal is more precise because a pendulum has all kinds of gears and mechanics in it to function. The more “complex” such a system is, the more probability that there’s a deviation. For civil time keeping it’s good enough. I mean who gives a shit if your clock is a few seconds behind mine right? But for science, which often requires really precise measurements, it’s a different story and more precision was needed.
Quartz crystal oscillations intervals are fairly regular in comparison and thus, much less deviations. It’s a simple setup and thus, less chances of deviations happening somewhere along the way.
Even more precise is the atomic clock, but that’s a different story.
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