In a nutshell – the faster the balance, the higher the precision. But to keep a balance swinging at 10 Hz is incredibly difficult, especially in a full-sized tourbillon cage. So how did the Breguet team make it possible?
Well, for starters, this is invention on a level worthy of Bréguet’s heyday in the late 18th, early 19th century, when he invented the tourbillon, the pare-chute shock absorber, and the Breguet spiral to mention but a few of his immortal contributions to the watch industry.
Released in December this timepiece marked the final chapter in Manufacture Breguet’s 250th anniversary celebrations – and the first chapter of its future.
Ok, here’s my attempt to make this extremely complex watch understandable. First, let’s start with what is traditional with this watch. As in all movements, the energy from the mainspring barrels goes through the train wheels to the escape wheel which is interacting with the anchor. So far so good.
But on The Expérimentale 1 the energy is passed directly from the escape wheel to the balance wheel with the help of magnets – normally a sworn enemy of watch movements – giving the impulses. If you ever tried to put to the same pole of two magnets together, you can imagine the forces at play here.
And because the moving parts are working with the magnetic forces are not mechanically touching each other, this magnetic escapement overcomes the problem of inertia – the difficulty of moving all parts forward. It would simply not be possible to keep all these things rotating at such a speed with a traditional Swiss escapement: Imagine trying to make a marathon at a 100 m dash speed carrying a 50 kilo on your head.
As the energy transfer to the balance now is without touching, the escapement always transmits the same exact amount of energy needed to the balance wheel throughout the whole 72-hour energy cycle of the power reserve. This is called constant force, which was also the area of the first patent filed by Breguet in 1798. Notable here is that the constant force – which is often sought after with different techniques including fusée-and-chain – here is a byproduct of the magnetic technology used.
You can see most of these horological wonders below the sapphire dial which has an upside-down regulator style set up with the hours at 6 o ‘clock, central, slightly off-center minutes, and seconds on the 12 o’clock tourbillon. All this is ticking away inside a 43.5-millimeter Breguet gold case from the Marine collection with the characteristic vertical grooves on the caseband.
As Expérimentale 1 is a manifestation of the quest for precision that has been the driver of Breguet for 251 years, the big question is: Does it work? Oh yes, this watch has a deviation of only ±1 second, certified by the Breguet Hallmark, an accuracy that places the Expérimentale 1 in the “Scientific” category.
