28 complications, ₤50,000


A while ago we brought you news of the Hoptroff No 10, the world’s first atomic pocket watch: a leviathan with no fewer than 28 complications, in which the timekeeping is governed not by an escapement, but by a caesium gas chamber in a tiny temperature-controlled oven, with a microwave resonator to monitor atomic transitions. This makes it the world’s most accurate watch by a very very long way. And it was being made here in London, by an entrepreneurial scientist named Richard Hoptroff, in his workshop in a garret in Southwark.
Well, world, here it is: the most accurate watch ever made. And as it says on the dial: ““Londini Invenit et Fecit” .

Hoptroff's No.10

This is quite the watch and very intricate. My concern would be learning the meaning of, and quickly recognizing, all those sub-dials. I don't think I'm smart enough to use it!

Interesting use of new-age electronics:
Teardown

1.Symmetricom Chip Scale Atomic Clock
2.USB socket
3.4 x pusher actuators
4.9 x Soprod bimotors
5.10 x Soprod monomotors
6.6 x PIC microcontrollers
7.60 x side-emitting LEDs
8.Flexipanel Bluetooth Low Energy radio
9.Sensirion humidity / temperature sensor
10.Measurement Specialties pressure sensor
11.Freescale magnetometer

Union Fortune Lithium Polymer battery pack sandwiched between circuit boards (not visible)

Dial:
1.Hours
2.Minutes
3.Seconds
4.Annual wheel
5.Magnetic compass
6.Longitude – coarse scale
7.Not shown due to patent applications
8.Day of week
9.Humidity
10.Date
11.Sidereal seconds
12.Power remaining
13.Tide forecast
14.Tide height
15.Temperature
16.Atmospheric pressure
17.Latitude – minutes
18.Latitude – degrees
19.Sidereal hours
20.Sidereal minutes
21.Longitude – minutes
22.Longitude – degrees
23.Microwave resonator status
24.Charge status
25.Atomic resonance lock indicator
26.Clock status – atomic / ACXO / TCXO
27.Caesium oven status
28.Laser status

Thanks but no thanks my 3 fingers Elgin will do
just fine in my pocket

And some people consider a 24hr. Montgomery dial "busy" !!!. I'd be afraid of having a nuclear meltdown in my pocket.

Wouldn't you worry more about having another meltdown just outside the pocket. Depending of course on which pocket it was kept in.

I wonder how much of an alarm you'd set off at airport security with one of those?

Regard! Mark

Most likely takes a week just to set it ......

As many of the spy cameras which record our daily lives in this freedom loving nation are now fitted with scintillation counters, I suspect carrying this around could cause a "swarm" of alarms that might result in a dangerous episode with one of our local city, state or national (paramilitary) gendarmes who seem to shoot first and ask questions later with much more regularity these days.