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A balance spring, or hairspring, is a spring attached to the balance wheel in mechanical timepieces. It causes the balance wheel to oscillate with a resonant frequency when the timepiece is running, which controls the speed at which the wheels of the timepiece turn, and thus the rate of movement of the hands. A regulator lever is often fitted, which can be used to alter the free length of the spring and thereby adjust the rate of the timepiece. The balance spring is a fine spiral or helical torsion spring used in mechanical watches, alarm clocks, kitchen timers, marine chronometers, and other timekeeping mechanisms to control the rate of oscillation of the balance wheel. The balance spring is an essential adjunct to the balance wheel, causing it to oscillate back and forth. The balance spring and balance wheel together form a harmonic oscillator, which oscillates with a precise period or "beat" resisting external disturbances, and is responsible for timekeeping accuracy. The addition of the balance spring to the balance wheel around 1657 by Robert Hooke and Christiaan Huygens greatly increased the accuracy of portable timepieces, transforming early pocketwatches from expensive novelties to useful timekeepers. Improvements to the balance spring are responsible for further large increases in accuracy since that time. Modern balance springs are made of special low temperature coefficient alloys like nivarox to reduce the effects of temperature changes on the rate, and carefully shaped to minimize the effect of changes in drive force as the mainspring runs down. Before the 1980s, balance wheels and balance springs were used in virtually every portable timekeeping device, but in recent decades electronic quartz timekeeping technology has replaced mechanical clockwork, and the major remaining use of balance springs is in mechanical watches. ==History== There is some dispute as to whether it was invented around 1660 by British physicist Robert Hooke or Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens, with the likelihood being that Hooke first had the idea, but Huygens built the first functioning watch that used a balance spring.〔A. R. Hall, "Horology and criticism: Robert Hooke", ''Studia Copernicana, XVI, Ossolineum, 1978, 261-81.〕 Before that time, balance wheels or foliots without springs were used in clocks and watches, but they were very sensitive to fluctuations in the driving force, causing the timepiece to slow down as the mainspring unwound. The introduction of the balance spring effected an enormous increase in the accuracy of pocketwatches, from perhaps several hours per day〔, p.226〕 to 10 minutes per day, making them useful timekeepers for the first time. The first balance springs had only a few turns. A few early watches had a Barrow regulator, which used a worm drive, but the first widely used regulator was invented by Thomas Tompion around 1680. In the Tompion regulator the curb pins were mounted on a semicircular toothed rack, which was adjusted by fitting a key to a cog and turning it. The modern regulator, a lever pivoted concentrically with the balance wheel, was patented by Joseph Bosley in 1755, but it didn't replace the Tompion regulator until the early 19th century.〔(Mundy, ''Bosley Regulator'' )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「balance spring」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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