A wall clock, desk clock or wristwatch all have 3 basic hands. These are the hour hand, minute hand and second hand. But when we look at the time, we only need the hour and minute hands. So what does the second hand appear on the watch face for? Is it possible for us to have nothing to do in our free time, so we can sit and watch time slowly go by in vain?
In fact, the seconds hand is not a necessary thing on a watch face, but it is not useless either. And the seconds hand also has a rather heroic history and a great responsibility, which many of us may not be aware of.
The seconds hand is actually a later innovation on modern watches, but they have been around since the 15th century. Even then, the seconds hand was still not very popular. The reason is partly due to user demand and partly due to technology.
The second hand first appeared in the 15th century , on pocket watches made in Germany. At that time, the seconds hand was mainly used for specialized watches, rather than for regular watches.
The seconds hand wasn’t really popular until the 19th century.
With ordinary watches, the hands have no practical effect and are also difficult to manufacture. It wasn’t until the 17th century that watchmakers added a “fourth wheel” to the standard 3-wheel movement, with a rotation of exactly 1 minute.
This 4th gear is then combined with an outer gear, which takes care of stopping the time. Since then, it has become simpler and more common for manufacturers to add a sub-dial and seconds hand on watches.
The seconds hand on today’s watches.
In the 19th century, the seconds hand and seconds sub-dials became popular. It wasn’t until the 20th century that the seconds hand was introduced into the center, the same axis and dial as the minute and hour hands. However, the seconds hand was still considered an extra part of the drive system inside the watch.
It wasn’t until 1948 that the Zenith’s Cal. 133 marks a disturbance in the arrangement of the gears, to set the seconds hand as the center of the movement. The previous “indirect” seconds hands caused their movement to wobble across the dial. The minute hand wheel previously located in the center is moved outward and becomes the indirect minute hand, the wobble of the minute hand is not noticed due to its relatively slow movement.
First of all, a watch is not required to have a second hand and it can still function properly, displaying the correct time. In fact, there are still many watches today that do not have a second hand.
The meaning of the seconds hand derives from the need to measure time and chronograph precisely. That’s why most chronographs have a large central seconds hand and a sub-dial to show a running seconds hand.
Most chronograph watches have two seconds hands.
During the war, the stop function of the second hand also played a very important role. “Stop seconds” or “Hacking” became a popular feature after the US Army requested it for A-11 watches during World War II.
Soldiers often could not communicate directly with each other, but needed to coordinate their actions precisely. A seconds hand that can stop for synchronization is very important when performing the task.
The A11 watch with the US military stop seconds hacking feature.
Although it seems simple, this hacking function requires technical components that a regular watch does not have. The manufacturer must add a lever or brake to prevent the movement of the main wheel, when pulling the crown out, the entire movement of the watch will stop. However, by now this feature has become very popular and is available on almost all wristwatches.
The Jaeger-LeCoultre World Chronograph watch uses an activity indicator instead of a hand.
Finally, the most important feature of the seconds hand, especially for mechanical wristwatches, is to see if the watch is running or not , so you know which winding. Because it is difficult to look at the minute hand to know that the watch is still working. In fact, some mechanical watches don’t have hands, but use a “activity indicator” with a similar function.