This is fascinating stuff, no question, and a wonderfully clear writeup of the many issues involved. FWIW I'm delighted that at least some watchmakers are still pursuing enhanced accuracy (and precision) in mechanical watches, even though personally, when I'm interested in the last word in timekeeping per se, I turn--heresy!--to a radio-controlled or GPS-linked quartz watch. But hey, pursuit of the highest possible achievement in any endeavor, seems to me, is almost always worthwhile, even if sometimes it does carry a whiff of angels dancing on the heads of pins. So to answer the headline question, in this case I'd say it's neither a great leap forward--'cause it's just not THAT big a deal, is it?--nor smoke and mirrors, because there is some true advancement going on here, however small its everyday impact may be, and after so many decades of mechanical watch development, that's pretty damn cool.
This is fascinating stuff, no question, and a wonderfully clear writeup of the many issues involved. FWIW I'm delighted that at least some watchmakers are still pursuing enhanced accuracy (and precision) in mechanical watches, even though personally, when I'm interested in the last word in timekeeping per se, I turn--heresy!--to a radio-controlled or GPS-linked quartz watch. But hey, pursuit of the highest possible achievement in any endeavor, seems to me, is almost always worthwhile, even if sometimes it does carry a whiff of angels dancing on the heads of pins. So to answer the headline question, in this case I'd say it's neither a great leap forward--'cause it's just not THAT big a deal, is it?--nor smoke and mirrors, because there is some true advancement going on here, however small its everyday impact may be, and after so many decades of mechanical watch development, that's pretty damn cool.
Fascinating. Thank you, Jack.