30 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
Odd Sympathy
Laid up in bed during a brief illness and idly watching two clocks mounted in one case, Huygens noticed something strange: No matter how the pendulums started out, eventually they always ended up swinging in exactly opposite directions. Huygens wondered whether this odd sympathy might solve the longitude problem. Perhaps, he thought, two such clocks could regulate each other. If one got dirty, for instance, and started running slow, the influence of the other clock would lessen this effect. I... 1 
notes
notesMathematician Christiaan Huygens, inventor of the pendulum clock found that two clocks on the same wall will invariably come into counter-synchronization with one another. This is because of thermodynamics and their connection via the support beam in the wall.
