Objekt 13
Chronometer
Description
This earliest known clock with a "constant force escapement" was made by the London clockmaker Thomas Mudge (1715-1792) between June 9 and October 31, 1755. He followed the specifications and design of the Basel mathematician and astronomer Johann Jakob Huber (1733-1798), a student of Johann II and Daniel Bernoulli, who was in London in the summer of 1755. Huber had presented his proposal to the then well-known astronomer James Bradley (1693-1762) and, on his recommendation, commissioned Mudge to build the movement. On his return to Basel, Huber brought the chronometer with him. From the estate of his son, the mathematician Daniel Huber, the movement came as a bequest to the physics cabinet of the university in 1829.
Object description
Manufacturer: Johann Jakob Huber (1733-1798) (idea); Thomas Mudge (1715-1794) (execution)
London, 1755
Brass, partly silvered
Physical Collection No. 110
Deposit Astronomisch-Meteorologische Anstalt der Universität Basel
Inv. 1960.20.