The point being, of course, that there weren’t actually any fleas there at all.

I said elsewhere that the Chronophage’s depiction of time being devoured seems really cool.
And then I added that, as recent medical research shows that many illnesses (including depression, obesity, insomnia, autism and Sundown Syndrome in Alzheimer’s patients, and more) are associated with poorly operating biological clocks, maybe it is we who are being devoured by time? At least “corporate standard time” — as compared with “local natural time” — i.e., “time” that is naturally defined as “time of local sunrise, local noon and local sunset”!

As modern working conditions and modern time-keeping (such as time zones, and Daily Saving Time) have more and more gotten in the way of our biological clocks knowing what they need to know to healthily regulate our circadian rhythms, perhaps it is time for us to get our bio-clocks back in sync with the flows and ebbs of actual day and night? Can’t hurt, and might help a lot. Which is why GreenTyme’s recently patented Synclecron is freely available on the Web at GTyme.org. And also why its mobile edition will soon be freely available for the browsers of iPhones, gPhones, BlackBerries, etc., via gty.me.

Come again? Hang out with many New Agers? I’ve heard this bogus accusation before. Usually means you missed the point.

I have an old automatic watch, a Buren, which at the time (1950s) was the thinnest automatic watch made. It’s worth about nothing, although it runs fine and keeps time to about 2-3 minutes a week. When all the watch batteries die, it’s still going.

If the cost of mechanical watches were a reflection of admiration for their engineering, I’d expect these older watches to be worth more.. so I agree, it’s mostly the ineffable wonder of branding that sells. Those watches are accessories, not timepieces: signifiers, as Kaleberg says.

Getting by day to day “on time” doesn’t take accuracy. Mechanical watches are interesting to look at, and very interesting to build. It’s art.

I do have something against a quarts watch: You’re probably already carrying around at least one other device that serves its purpose. You’re also probably in view of at least one more time piece (in fact if you’re reading this, you certainly are). A wristwatch no longer serves a purpose. What’s left is a testament to precision machining that is perfectly fine to admire.

I understand what you’re saying: The mechanical solution appeals to you because it has to be done right, whereas the quartz solution can be made to work almost any which way.

But isn’t it the mark of true sophistication and elegance in a solution that it is robust to variations and specific values? An analogy: I might be able to prove a particular result using either a complex calculation (in which I have to get every step right) or a simple symmetry argument. Which is more elegant?

I think in the case of watches what I admire is that mechanical watches manage to solve a difficult problem – making movement exactly repeatable and periodic – under very challenging constraints. Quartz watches, well, it’s like applying a sledgehammer to the problem. *I* could design a quartz clock, and I don’t really know what I’m doing. I could be sloppy about it – so the battery voltage isn’t quite right, so the resistors are a little off, so what, I just fiddle one pot and it keeps great time. Modern electronics provides such powerful tools, you can churn out zillions of cheap watches. But try to do the same thing with, essentially, pre 20th-century techniques, and it becomes extremely difficult. Solving hard problems is more impressive than solving easy problems.

A mechanical watch is almost the opposite of a Rube Goldberg machine: a Rube Goldberg machine does a simple task using the most complicated method available. A mechanical watch must be as simple as the task and the constraint (no electronics) allows or it just won’t work. And a mechanical watch that doesn’t work – whose hands don’t move – isn’t a solution to the problem at all.

It could be argued that your whole explanation is based on the branding of the ‘coolness’ of mechanical watches. You could just as easily talk about the elegance of quartz watches in their simplicity and efficiency of design as opposed to the Rube-Goldberg device that is the mechanical watch.
Not that I care either way, I don’t wear watches for the same reason as CH, just pointing out that your standards of what makes a good watch (or good machine) are pretty arbitrary – you (and others here) seem to be saying a complex machine is good simply due to the fact that it’s complex beyond need. Which I think was the original point of this post: if people are judging watches by some standard other than their ability to keep time, why is that? And would those people be just as happy with their watch if it was purely a fashion piece where the hands didn’t move at all, and why not?

http://www.emeraldsequoia.com/h/index.html

miller: Actually, the way quartz watches keep time is really rather dull. They have one precisely-made component, a piezoelectric crystal that resonates at a very specific frequency. Electrical signals are fed into it to get it moving, and a voltage oscillating at that frequency is read out. A chip counts the peaks, and when one second worth has been accumulated, it moves the second hand. There is certainly cleverness that went into designing the crystal and the chips, but it’s a cleverness that was invented once and applied in every practically every sort of electronic gadget. Mechanical watches, on the other hand, more or less require an extremely fine balancing of spring tension, very precise gears, gemstone bearings (to minimize wear)… to work at all they need to be beautifully-crafted. (Clearly there’s no need for them to work hard selling me on mechanical watches. Shame they’re out of my price range.)

Now, I have no idea how quartz watches keep time, but I’m sure it must be nothing short of amazing.

As a physicist, you really should appreciate the making of these astonishing objects. Google tourbillon…

…which is not very relevant unless you’re in Arizona. Everywhere else in the time zone uses Mountain Daylight Time.

(Sorry… people referring to “Standard Time” during DST is a peeve of mine!)