I'd like to introduce two cool things to those who want to learn about them... the tourbillon and the minute repeater...
Tourbillon...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj2Ia0KWxN0
WHAT IS A TOURBILLON
When it comes to time, accuracy is everything. Nobody’s going to take a watchmaker who can’t tick the talk. The gravity of the situation was not lost on the watchmakers of past who realised that the pull of Newton’s forces did have an effect on the performance of their timepieces. In the normal course of use, a watch goes through a variety of positions as your arm swings. This is great for the automatic movement. However, with the pocket watch, it tends to be kept in a vertical position, and we all know how gravity loves to play with that. The result is small changes to the accuracy of the timepiece.
In the beginning
Many may just brush it off as trivial, but others are bothered by it to the extent it’s more than dust in the eye. For instance, back in the 18th century, sailors’ lives depended on the accuracy of their ship’s deck watch or marine chronometer. Ingeniously, it was Abraham-Louis Breguet, ticked off enough about the fact that he was losing time this way, who decided to bridge the problem in 1795 by inventing the régulateur à tourbillon.
The tourbillon (whirlwind) device has the escapement parts in a mobile cage that rotates in one direction, driven by a fixed wheel. This eliminates the effects of gravity on the balance wheel movement, and restores accuracy to the timepiece.
Piece de resistence
The tourbillon, patented by Breguet in 1801, is one of those complications that many watch manufacturers strive to produce as a piece de resistance of their collection. Others wonder why they bother since it doesn’t seem to serve a practical purpose. The main reason for this dissenting perspective is the difficult nature of their creation and the resulting high cost. Extremely precise mechanical tolerances are called into play – not too much weight, nor friction, or the entire system could wind up just looking pretty on your wrist while you seek the time elsewhere.
Marrying art and craft was Constant Girard-Perregaux’s aim as he created the Tourbillon Sous Trois Points d’Or, in 1867. The three-bridge design he invented for his pocket chronometer has been copied since, eventually finding its way onto wrists in 1991.
Mechanical marvels
The difficulty of manufacturing chronometer tourbillons fostered more innovative thinking, and Bahne Bonniksen, a Danish immigrant to England, came up with the karrusel (derived from carrousel). Patented by him in 1892, the karrusel has a movement that rotates at a slower rate than the chronometer tourbillon, but is more robust.
In the 1920s, Alfred Helwig, the Glashutte master watchmaker, invented the flying tourbillon regulator, which is pivot mounted on one side with no supporting bridge.
The arrival of the wristwatch resulted in watchmakers trying to find ways of miniaturising this already complicated movement. In 1930, the tourbillon regulator made its appearance in a wristwatch. Not too many tourbillons are in existence, and the quartz oscillator put an end to these mechanical marvels in the late ’60s. But the rebirth of mechanical watches has seen several companies taking up the miniaturisation process all over again.
Creative Applications
F.P. Journe’s Souverain Tourbillon is one of the more creative applications, while Blancpain seems to focus intensively on using these technical marvels. Omega has a self-winding Central Tourbillon which is produced in limited quantities, and has the movement as the centrepiece, while Patek Philippe swings in the other direction with its Sky Moon Tourbillon which has 12 complications and uses both
sides of the watch.
Whether it’s just a case of one-upmanship or practicality, the tourbillon is still an integral part of watchmaking and still causing a whirlwind of activity.
and........
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourbillon