Pay close attention to this video or you’ll miss Tag Heuer’s new Mikrotimer Flying 1000 in action. The new concept watch is the most accurate mechanical chronograph ever.
The Mikrotimer Flying 1000 measures time accurately down to 1/1000th of a second. That’s so fast that at first glance you might not even catch what’s going on in the video. After the chronograph starts, the yellow hand starts ticking out the time every .001 seconds. The hand spins so fast that your eyes can barely glean its motion — until the chronograph is stopped 10 seconds later and you realise what was going on all along. [Hodkinke and TAG Heuer via OhGizmo]
Jackson Bison
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 7:46 AMSee, this is cool, but when we start talking accuracy of a manually operated timer, the user’s response time and actual time to physically press the button would easily take 1/100th of a second…
So is it really accurate to 1/1000th of a second?
Practically: no.
Still awesome, but.
EckyThump
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 7:59 AMThinking the exact same thing,.. what’s the point when human response is so bloody slow? #]
nozlaf
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 8:26 AMcleatly your both subject matter experts
the timepiece is accurate, if you as a human use it twice within a relative short period your delay in response time is a constant (standard deviation of human response time at two times within a short period of time is incredibly low) so the accuracy of the timepiece is not really affected by it.
nozlaf
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 8:28 AMdoh “clearly”
Jackson Bison
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 9:20 AMObviously you’re an expert in both statistics, human biology and correct spelling/grammar
Empirical evidence suggests that the average human response time is anywhere between 0.2 to 0.25 seconds – i.e. 1/5th to 1/4th
http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/stats.php
So while the time piece itself is accurate, you will not get an accurate measure to 1/1000th of a second of what you are actually timing.
You are assuming that the change in your response time will be within 1/1000th of a second each time, and that you know exactly what your response time is (to 1/1000th of a second) to be able to deduct that from the reading on the watch.
If you can, I apologise, as you are truly an amazing individual.
Tim Mead
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 10:20 AMI presume it’s more of a engineering exercise, rather than a practical one. Similar to a tourbillion.
KRS1
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 9:39 AMIt won’t impress girls though.. at Euro 65k, it would want to
JD
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 10:28 AMSome people are maybe missing the point of watches. They’re not always meant to be useful. How many people really need to know the phases of the moon? Moon phases on watches are just complications to display the skill of the watch maker, just like timing to an accuracy of 1000th of a second. It’s an impressive feat of engineering.
The point is that watches are meant to be cool. This one succeeds!
Magsin
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 11:26 AMFunny how the white pointer (which looks to record increments of 5 seconds) doesn’t even line up with the marker!