Breguet's Marie Antoinette in London
Infamous and complex, Breguet pocket watch No. 160, The Marie Antoinette, is part of the Versailles: Science and Splendour Exhibit on display at the London Science Museum from December 12th, 2024 through April 21st, 2025.
Image credit The Museum for Islamic Art, Jerusalem
Zenith DEFY Skyline C.X
A pleasant use of depth in the dial of this collaboration between Zenith and Collective Horology, inspired by mid-century modern industrial design. The touch of colour is reminiscent of the orange accents leveraged by the design teams at Nomos and Apple.
Image credit Horology Collective LLC
The State of Legacy Watchmakers
Ariel Adams, writing for A Blog to Watch, on the contrast between incumbent and independent watchmakers in 2024:
A company with a 100, 150, or 250-year history lingering in the air will have a different approach to decisions and communication than a first-generation one that is balancing right on the edge of its cash flow reserves. And yet, it feels like historical companies struggle with turning their established present and solid foundations into calmness, confidence, and a sight on the distant future — instead, sometimes all we get is stuffiness, condescension, and an obsession with the past.
An Astounding Array of Independents
Michael Tay, of The Hour Glass, drew an astonishing array of the world's top horological talent together in Singapore for Iamwatch 2024.
Some thoughtful perspective on the event from JX Su, reporting for Watches by SJX.
The watchmaking-themed Hawaiian shirts were a fun touch for an event held in such a tropical locale.
Additional reporting, and loads more photos of the event, from Mark Kauzlarich over at Hodinkee.
Image via Jx Su
White Lume
The Ming Minimalist, reference 37.02, heralds in the era of a mass-produced watch being available with luminous pigment that not only looks white in daylight, but glows white in the dark.
The 37.02 Minimalist is also the first timepiece from Ming that has been designed, engineered and production managed at their new Swiss facility in La Chaux de Fonds.
Image credit Horologer Ming
Kelo Wood
Following the path of an unsetting sun across the sky in the summer months, pine trees north of the Arctic Circle develop a coil-like grain structure that imbues the trunks of the trees with an abnormal level of strength and durability relative to their straight-grained counterparts. So much so, that kelo trees remain standing long after they have died, shedding their bark while still erect, allowing the sapwood to dry and become bleached by the sun. The resulting timber is likewise strong, as well as being unusually resistant to rot and warpage. Kelo wood also boasts a characteristic colouration: greyish-white on the outside with reddish-brown heartwood.
Kello, which is the Finnish word for clock, shares the same Finno-Ugric root as kelo. While the etymology of the words themselves are believed to have been derived from the word for bell—just as clock is in English—the inherent qualities of both clock dials and kelo wood are protracted from the relative motion of the sun across the sky in the Northern Hemisphere.
Hands On With the Cubitus
First leaked through an advertisement in Forbes Magazine, the Patek Philippe Cubitus was looked upon with derision and doubt by a number of commentators on social media. JX Su has had an early hands-on look and has much praise for this new chapter in Patek Philippe's legacy:
The Cubitus is an oversized square watch with an unexpectedly elegant profile – and some echoes of the Nautilus. While that might seem like an odd recipe, the Cubitus is a successful new creation.
The fit and finishing of the Cubitus is similar to current Patek Philippe offerings, which is to say the external components are excellent with a high level of detail, while the movement is industrial haute horlogerie.
Of note, the reference 5822P in the Cubitus Collection houses a new caliber, built on the Patek Philippe caliber 240, featuring instantaneous oversized date, day, and moonphase complications that tick over synchronously in the span of 0.018 seconds.
Image credit JX Su
Pushing MB&F's Flying Balance Wheel to the Extreme
A prototype of the 11.8mm long balance staff of the "flip escapement" created for the MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual, running in a modified prototype of the Legacy Machine 1 circa 2014 as an initial proof of concept. Devised and built by Irish watchmaker, Stephen McDonnell, the arches of prototype LM1 balance cock have been raised on temporary platforms to accommodate the increased length of the balance staff.
Image credit Stephen McDonnell
LLMs Don't Do Formal Reasoning
Six researchers at Apple, Iman Mirzadeh, Keivan Alizadeh, Hooman Shahrokhi, Oncel Tuzel, Samy Bengio, and Mehrdad Farajtabar, have found ample evidence that Large Language Models are incapable of logical reasoning:
Our findings support the hypothesis that current LLMs are not capable of performing formal mathematical reasoning
LLMs pattern match and do so at a scale that surpasses any single human brain's own innate ability to pattern match. This energy-intensive parlour trick has done a pretty good job of passing for intelligence across a range of domains and legitimate tests aimed at measuring cognitive ability. While these models may be able to fool us into thinking they can think, there is an abundance of evidence demonstrating that they lack the capacity to think and reason.
This impressive ability to pattern match at immense scale simultaneously serves as the Achilles' heel of modern LLMs. The massive data sets these models have been trained on has not and, indeed, cannot be vetted for accuracy by domain experts in any reasonable human-scale timeline. A significant amount of noise exists in the training data and the signal-to-noise ratio is liable to get much worse given the rate at which LLM-generated text, imagery, and video are flooding the pool of human knowledge. Feeding ever-bigger models more of this data is not the path forward. The next big breakthrough in silicon mimicking human intelligence will come from discrete, highly-specialized convolutional neural networks running alongside infallible logic systems (like calculators) via which a silicon-based prefrontal cortex orchestrates and carries out tasks.
Watches of Switzerland Acquires Hodinkee
Tori Latham reporting for Robb Report:
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, it is alleged that Hodinkee has faced numerous challenges in scaling and developing its business in recent years. Nevertheless, it is widely recognized for kickstarting the recent renaissance in watch collecting over the last decade, especially the last five years, so it’s no wonder Watches of Switzerland was interested in keeping it ticking. We’ll be curious to see how it manifests moving forward.
Möbino
A three-dimensional espresso cup inspired by the one-dimensional form of a möbius strip.
Designed by Metaform Architects and crafted in pottery studios of Ateliers Kräizbierg.
Image credit Metaform Architects
Supply of High-purity Quartz Hit Hard by Hurricane Helene
The small town of Spruce Pine in the Appalachian mountains is America's sole source of high-quality quartz, supplying the industries that depend on it at a global scale.
The remote community was pummelled with over two feet of rain from Hurricane Helene, resulting in massive flooding that destroyed homes, businesses, and critical infrastructure. The main rail line used to export quartz from the mines sustained severe damage from the storm.
Zhang Heng Armillary Sphere
A replica of Zhang Heng's water-powered armillary sphere on display in front of Taiwan's National Science and Technology Museum.
Armillary spheres consist of a framework of rings with three distinct layers and were used to aid in tracking the motion of the planets and stars. While most armillary sphere's are operated manually, Zhang's variation employed a waterwheel to power the sphere's mechanism and automate its motion, making one complete rotation each year.
Image credit 國立科學工藝博物館