Time Sync

Vija Celmins, Untitled (Saturn), 1985, mezzotint, 11 x 9 1/4 in., ed. 150, collection Whitney Museum; Untitled (Saturn), 1985 “offset lithograph from a unique mezzotint”? ed. 50, via Phillips In 1657, two years after discovering Saturn’s moon Titan and accurately characterizing the planet’s rings, the Dutch mathematical physicist Christiaan Huygens invented the pendulum clock, which was an order of magnitude more accurate than previous clock mechanisms. Huygens spent several years experimenting with pairs of clocks as part of a pan-European attempt to calculate longitude at sea. In a 1665 letter at The Royal Society about their onboard tests of his reinforced maritime pendulum clocks, Huygens reported “an odd kind of sympathy perceived by him in these watches [two maritime clocks] suspended by the side of each other.” The clocks were found to oscillate in sync, but with their pendulums moving in 180-degree opposite phase. If disturbed, they would resume this anti-phase synchrony…