zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

: I agree. BTW, I saw the sotry on A&E that you
: mentioned. I enjoyed it too. The quartz in
: watches is mined. It could be produced
: synthetically, but there are 2 reasons that
: practically nobody uses synthetic quartz in
: anything: 1.) Quartz is not a precious
: stone. It is less expensive to mine it and
: use natural quartz than it would be to
: produce it synthetically.

: 2.) Using synthetic quartz would defeat the
: purpose. For whatever reason, the natural
: quartz is more reliable in timing devices
: than synthetic. No matter how often we try
: to play God, we (men) always fall short. The
: natural properties of synthetic quartz
: simply do not match those of the natural
: stuff. Since it is less expensive to mine it
: and there is an abundance of it in nature,
: they simply choose to use the real stuff.

I was wondering if there needed to be some property or purity of the quartz crystal desired to create the frequency required. Just thinking too much I guess

: I also suspect that in the case of quartz as a
: timing device the old saying "a little
: goes a long way" applies since the
: stone in a timing device is really small
: even on large devices.

: Again, I too enjoyed the series
: "Longitude". Of course, I still
: wonder what the reaction of Navy would have
: been if they were presented with a quartz
: timing device that was not only accurate but
: uneffected by the rocking motions of the
: ship. As I recall, the rocking motion's
: effect on the clock was the main character's
: greatest design hurdle to jump.

True