How do clocks work?
Clocks work by counting a periodic event with a known frequency. For example, the pendulum in a grandfather clock swings back and forth at the same rate, over and over, and the gears “count” the swings. The arm of the pendulum is adjusted in order to make each half-swing take one second. One cycle per second equals 1 Hertz (Hz). With a quartz clock (like most wristwatches), a piece of quartz crystal is cut and used in an electronic circuit where it vibrates at a certain frequency (usually 32,768 Hz). The frequency is “counted” by dividing it by 32,768 to equal one second ‘ticks’. The ticks are used to advance the seconds on the clock. By dividing a high frequency down to a low frequency, the accuracy can be increased. For instance, if a half-swing of a pendulum is actually 0.1 Hz off, then the grandfather clock will be off by one second in ten seconds. If the quartz frequency on a watch is 0.1 Hz off, the watch will be off by one second in 327,680 seconds or, roughly, 0.26 seconds per
