Chrono
Good vibrations
The enduring art of resonance, a fascinating 370-year horological journe(y)
Words by Mark McArthur-Christie
IF YOU’D BEEN
in the bar of ’t Goude Hooft on The Hague’s Dagelijkse Groenmarkt in early 1657, you might have spotted scientist and mathematician Christiaan Huygens and his friend, the clockmaker Salomon Coster, hunched over their tankards in earnest discussion, the table strewn with sketches and beer-stained calculations. On Christmas Day in 1656, Huygens had conceived the idea of a pendulum clock, he needed a top-flight clockmaker to make it for him and that man was Coster. Neither knew it, but Coster’s clock would lead to the discovery of one of horology’s most fascinating phenomena: resonance.