{"id":133618,"date":"2022-03-16T19:00:29","date_gmt":"2022-03-16T11:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revolutionwatch.com\/?p=133618"},"modified":"2022-03-16T19:00:29","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T11:00:29","slug":"the-story-of-jacob-arabo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revolutionwatch.com\/the-story-of-jacob-arabo\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Jacob Arabo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt is not a dream of motorcars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America, 1931<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve seen a lot of watches in my life. So, it\u2019s rare for me to have a genuine moment of revelation. The whole \u201cArchimedes in the bathtub, witnessing the water level rise and suddenly comprehending volumetric displacement, Eureka\u201d thing. But the first time I actually held a Jacob & Co. Astronomia in my hands, I had to admit I was blown away. Sure, I had seen watches that placed the oscillator \u2014 the beating heart of the watch \u2014 on the dial, often in tourbillion format, and made it rotate around the perimeter. This was the idea behind Ulysse Nardin\u2019s Freak created by Ludwig Oechslin and also Piaget\u2019s Tourbillon Relatif designed by the brilliant Carole Forestier. (To be fair, the first concept of the Freak also came from Forestier.) But the Astronomia took the dial side animation initiated by these two watches and smashed it through the stratosphere to achieve an altogether different level of visual pyrotechnics and horological badassery.<\/p>\n

Here now was a mini-amphitheater contained within one of the most technically innovative and theatrically dazzling displays of time transformed into celestial poetry I had ever witnessed. It featured a four-arm carriage driven by a single almighty massive mainspring at the base of the watch. As the carriage turns, it compels \u2014 count \u2019em \u2014 a triple-axis gravitational tourbillion; a floating differential driven hour and minute dial with the miraculous capacity to always stay oriented upright; a 288-facet diamond and a miniature magnesium globe rendered in exquisite detail to represent the earth that both rotate once every 60 seconds, to all come to life. This carriage completes a full clockwise revolution every 20 minutes.<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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The awe-inspiring Astronomia with its distinctive four-arm carriage that completes a full clockwise revolution every 20 minutes<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Accordingly, the tourbillon\u2019s first axis of rotation is that of a traditional 60-second tourbillon, the next axis turns every five minutes, and its final axis follows the 20-minute revolution. In a subsequent sped-up version of the watch, the second axis of rotation takes just 2.5 minutes, the third axis turns every 10 minutes, while the diamond and magnesium globe rotate every 30 seconds. Taken together, this makes Jacob & Co.\u2019s Astronomia the single most animated hyper- complicated timepiece of its kind on the market. Indeed, I feel the watch is actually even greater than the sum of its individual complications. When viewed as a whole, it is a wonderfully poetic way of linking us with the very foundation of time telling \u2014 but in the wildest, craziest, most out there and technically libidinous manner conceivable.<\/div><\/div><\/div>