{"id":567,"date":"2014-08-29T11:28:24","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T11:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/?p=567"},"modified":"2014-08-29T11:28:24","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T11:28:24","slug":"timeless-inventions-self-winding-watches-and-pedometers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/timeless-inventions-self-winding-watches-and-pedometers\/","title":{"rendered":"Timeless inventions: Self-winding watches and pedometers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Abraham-Louis

Abraham-Louis Perrelet \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (born 1729, died 1826)<\/p><\/div>\n

In today’s blog post, we take a\u00a0look at the life of the man responsible for bringing us self-winding pocket watches and pedometers. A\u00a0master watchmaker and brilliant inventor, Abraham-Louis Perrelet.<\/p>\n

Watchmaker Perrelet was born in Switzerland in 1729 and was the inventor of a self-winding pocket-watch mechanism, which is still used in modern wristwatches.<\/p>\n

Designed to wind itself, an oscillating weight inside the watch would move up and down as the owner moved, winding the mainspring and turning the gears to move the hands.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The spinning rotor in all automatic watches that responds to the wearers movement was officially recognised as an invention in 1777.<\/p>\n

Perrelet was always an innovative watchmaker, despite beginning work with his father who was a farmer and carpenter. By the age of 20, Perrelet took the decision to pursue a career in watch-making. He succeeded in creating the first watches with cylinder, duplex, date and equation escapements as well as perfecting pinions, wheels, escapements and winding mechanisms.<\/p>\n

\"A

A modern Fastime pedometer.<\/p><\/div>In 1780 Perrelet created the first pedometer – a device that counts each step a person takes by detecting motion of the hips. Originally utilised by sports and fitness enthusiasts, pedometers are now popular for measuring activity and are a useful motivator.<\/p>\n

A watchmaker into old age, one of his last timepieces was devised at the age of 96 – it is now held at the Musee International d’horlogerie (International Museum of Horology) in Switzerland. Abraham-Louis Perrelet died in 1826 after almost 80 years devotion to watch-making techniques.<\/p>\n

The Perrelet name lived on with the birth in 1781 of Louis-Frederic, who inherited his grandfather’s extraordinary talent for watch-making. His natural flair for astronomy, physics and mathematics led to the creation of “intel-ligent” watches and an astronomical clock – the latter earning Louis-Frederic Perrelet a royal appointment as watch-maker-engineer to three kings of France.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In today’s blog post, we take a\u00a0look at the life of the man responsible for bringing us self-winding pocket watches and pedometers. A\u00a0master watchmaker and brilliant inventor, Abraham-Louis Perrelet. Watchmaker Perrelet was born in Switzerland in 1729 and was the inventor of a self-winding pocket-watch mechanism, which is still used in modern wristwatches. Designed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t