[time-nuts] Stephen Hawking unveils Chronophage clock at Cambridge

[Hal Murray]

> It's only accurate "once every 5 minutes", but it's more entertaining
> than watching a caesium box :) 

The BBC article says:
  But the clock is only accurate once every five minutes - the rest of the
  time the lights are simply for decoration.

The wikipedia article on the Grasshopper escapement
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grasshopper_escapement
links to an AP article that says:
  Weirdly, the clock's pendulum slows down or speeds
  up. Sometimes it stops, the chronophage shakes a foot
  and the pendulum moves again.

  Because of that, the time display may be as much as a
  minute off, although it swings back to the correct time
  every five minutes, said Taylor.

If the pendulum stops, how does it know when to start up again?


Is the visual pendulum just decoration with the real timekeeping done by some 
other mechanism?



-- 
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.