Engineer Guy

How a quartz watch works (2x6)

: 14, 2010

The amazing everyday wristwatch: We never think about it, but only because engineers have made it so reliable and durable that we don't need to. At its heart lies a tiny tuning fork made of the mineral quartz. In this video Bill takes apart a cheap watch and shows extreme close-ups of the actually tuning fork. He explains how the piezoelectric effect of quartz lies at the heart of the watch's operation.