Étude Nº1
Series of 25
A seconds complication
by Nadim Elgarhy
Mechanical, automatic
Exact at every minute
A seconds hand that slows, stops, runs backwards and races. At every full minute it crosses twelve, exactly.
01The complication
This is the real hand on the real dial, driven by the watch’s own cam law and stepping at its own beat, 28,800 vibrations an hour. Its hours and minutes follow your clock. It crosses twelve at every full minute of your clock.
02One minute
0:33It keeps pace.
0:38Slower.
0:42Stopped.
0:47Backwards, at the pace of an ordinary seconds hand.
0:53Then it races, up to three times as fast.
1:00Twelve. Exactly on the minute.
0:33Speed of the hand · shaded: backwards1:00
03Every minute
At every full minute the hand crosses twelve exactly, after running forward for at least two seconds.
Almost a fifth of the time, it runs backwards.
Changes of direction in five minutes.
Before its rhythm repeats: two cams, turning in 50 and 42.86 seconds, meet again only then.
04The mechanism
The aperture. A round window at six o’clock, 10 mm across.
The cams turn; the anchor rocks between them. Every move the hand makes begins here.
The module sits on the dial side of the movement. A pinion on the movement’s seconds drives a small differential. The escapement is left alone.
The hand shows the movement’s own seconds, plus an offset. That offset is steered by an anchor resting on two cams.
One cam turns in 50 seconds, the other in 42.86. Their profiles are computed so that every offset cancels at the minute.
hand = seconds + offset
05The dial
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06The case
Under a domed crystal the dial sits deep, so the watch has depth. 39.7 × 42.1 mm, 10.53 mm thick.
The back is closed: the mechanism worth watching is on the dial side. The back keeps the name, the reference and the number of the piece, acid-etched into a mirror polish.
The case. Cushion-shaped, the crown centred on the flank.
—Photographs
07Specifications
08Its own heartbeat
01 min2345
Étude Nº1. Speed of the hand over the full five-minute cycle.
How the hand moves is written in its cams.
Each of the 25 pieces receives its own pair, computed for it alone. No two watches share the same pattern: each is unique in its randomness.
Every pair is held to the same rules. However its hand wanders, it still crosses twelve exactly at every minute.
The aperture at six o’clock. The two cams that write this piece’s pattern turn inside it.
09The bureau
A study office into the human experience of time: the Bureau Privé des Études Expérimentales.
We start from a question, not a calibre: how faithfully can a watch reflect the time we actually live, the second that stretches while you wait and vanishes when you don’t? Each piece is an experiment in bringing mathematical clarity to something that slips through our grasp.
The great houses pursue accuracy and complexity, and they do it superbly. We pursue neither for its own sake. Our watches are mechanical and exact, but that is the means, not the point.
Algorithme du Temps lives in the tension between its two words: the logic of the algorithm, the elusiveness of time. We try to control what cannot be controlled, as an alchemist would, turning something abstract into an object you can hold.
10Research
White paper · 5 November 2024
Time, as both a perceptual and philosophical construct, has intrigued scholars across disciplines, from psychology and physics to philosophy and horology. This literature review synthesizes seminal and contemporary theories on time perception, subjective temporality, and the multifaceted nature…
Read the white paper ↗Paper · 5 November 2024
We propose a novel theoretical framework that positions consciousness as a fundamental dimension orthogonal to spacetime. This geometric model provides new insights into the relationship between physical reality and subjective experience, offering potential resolutions to long-standing questions in…
Read the paper ↗Further reading
11The creator
“Algorithme … relates to the very definite, predictable, logical, mathematical, while temps … is elusive, mysterious, misunderstood, we try to control it but we can’t.”
A degree in computer engineering and algorithms. A research interest in how we perceive time.
He founded Algorithme du Temps on the gap between its two words, and wrote the two papers that frame its work. Rêveries des Secondes turns the question at the heart of The Future of Time into a mechanism.
A watch that shows the time we live, and stays exact every minute.
12The film
Look at a clock’s seconds hand, and for an instant, it seems to stop.
Neuroscientists call it chronostasis. The moment you look, your mind stretches it.
Our sense of time is not constant. Some seconds slip past unnoticed. Others stretch toward infinity.
Yet every watch we wear marks each one exactly the same.
13Register
14Questions
It changes speed continuously. It slows, stops for an instant, runs backwards at the speed of an ordinary seconds hand, then races forward at up to three times normal speed. At every full minute it crosses twelve exactly on time.
No. It is fully mechanical and fully determined. Two cams, turning in 50 and 42.86 seconds, set every movement of the hand; they only line up again after five minutes, so the pattern repeats every five minutes. It feels random because nobody watches a seconds hand that long.
No. Each of the 25 pieces receives its own pair of cams, computed for it alone. Every pair is held to the same rules, and every hand crosses twelve exactly at every minute.
Yes. The hours and minutes are driven directly from the base movement, whose escapement and going train are untouched, and the seconds hand is exact at every full minute. The module changes how the seconds are shown, not how the watch keeps time.
A pinion on the movement’s seconds drives a small differential. The hand shows the movement’s own seconds plus an offset, which an anchor steers as it rests on two cams. You can watch the anchor and the cams through the aperture at six.
A Sellita SW200-1 without date: automatic, 28,800 vibrations an hour. The module sits on its dial side, and was designed to adapt to other calibres.
Clockmakers have played with the seconds: the Swiss railway clock waits at twelve, the Corpus Clock in Cambridge slows, stops and catches up every five minutes. To Nadim Elgarhy’s knowledge, no seconds hand on the wrist slows, stops, runs backwards, races, and crosses twelve exactly every minute.
A rêverie is a mind left to wander. Rêveries des Secondes: the seconds, daydreaming.
Write to press@algorithmedutemps.com. The press kit, with images and the full specifications, is in the press section below.
15Press
Rêveries des Secondes is a seconds complication designed by Nadim Elgarhy for Algorithme du Temps. The press kit holds the story, the specifications, the research behind it and high-resolution images, which may be used for editorial coverage, credited “Algorithme du Temps”.
