The Tourbillon

[padi56]

Excellent post Al and agree with you on the mechanical and how good the tourbillon looks spinning in its cage.Truly the watchmakers fine art in making such delicate contraption,but IMHO thats about it.The superiority of the tourbillon becomes evident only in
observatory controls where the pieces are tested in one position.
The tourbillon does not correct position variations; it only prevents their being detected in the usual testing conditions. But when placed on the testing machine, the tourbillon reveals its weaknesses immediately.The tourbillon is in fact an additional mechanism that consumes energy without producing anything except misinformation. It is IMO quite useless in a wrist watch mechanism. The energy it consumes is taken from the reserve destined to the regulator. As a result, the balance with less energy will have reduced advantages. All watches established to function in both manners, with or without the tourbillon, always have smaller balances of less good performance in tourbillon version.Gravity is one of the main causes of rate variations in watches. By creating the tourbillon, watchmakers thought they was eliminating its effects. It was an error on there part. They succeeded only in masking them a little. If watchmakers could find a way of eliminating the force of gravity on watches,then perhaps they would be on to a winner.I would agree watching the tourbillon spin faster in the tourbillon cage, is quite spectacular in its operation.But as they are now are no better in terms of accuracy than your Chronometer.And even if they could get rid of the force of gravity,say in a weightless atmosphere.The rate variations would be so little, perhaps a little better than your average Chronometer.IMO they are a very expensive,and not really needed in a wrist watch.And are only there well because the watchmaker can make them.