Fully wound, it scoots away, but instead of maintaining the same speed until the spring has completely unwound, it gradually slows, the spring's torque decreasing exponentially.Ī fix had already been penned by two great Italian engineers, Filippo Brunelleschi and Leonardo da Vinci, albeit in a basic form. This effect can be seen clearly with a clockwork toy car. The problem is straightforward, even if the solution is not as a fully coiled mainspring unwinds, the torque it produces decreases. Isochronism describes the regularity of repeating events, such as a waveform, a pendulum or in this case, a main spring. Traditionally, clocks used hanging weights as a source of constant power, but despite the spring being a lot more compact, it presented a whole new problem of its own lack of isochronism. The sticking point in question surfaced in the 15th century with the introduction of the spring driven clock. Rewind back over half a millennium, however, and problem solving required a much more hands on approach. The speed of technological development has rocketed since the birth of the personal computer in the 1980s, making the software industry worth over $300 billion. Chances are if something isn't working quite right in today's world, all it needs is a bit of software tinkering.
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