The pendulum clock was invented by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens at the end of 1656 and patented in the following year, and the first examples were made by the clockmaker Salomon Coster in The Hague. Huygens used the regular swing of a pendulum, whose period depends on its length, to control the clock's escapement. This made clocks much more accurate than the older mechanisms, reducing the error from about fifteen minutes a day to a few seconds. Galileo had studied pendulums and had considered the idea earlier. Pendulum clocks remained the most accurate timekeepers for almost three centuries, until quartz clocks, and helped science, navigation and daily life.
Before and after
- from 29 July 1655 to 31 July 1655Battle of Vilnius
- from 28 November 1655 to 27 December 1655Siege of Jasna Góra
- 1656Las Meninas
- 1656Construction of Jama Masjid, Delhi
- 1656Pendulum clock
- from 28 July 1656 to 30 July 1656Battle of Warsaw
- 8 November 1656Birth of Edmond Halley
- 1657Founding of Marlborough
- from 1658 to 1660Carib Expulsion
More in Science & technology
- 1557Discovery of platinum
- 27 December 1571Birth of Johannes Kepler
- 8 January 1642Death of Galileo Galilei
- 1669Discovery of phosphorus
- 1735Discovery of cobalt
- 1755Discovery of magnesium
The era
This moment belongs to the Early modern world (1500 CE to 1760 CE), voyages, printing and new ideas. You can also browse everything in the 17th century.