Nice. It seems that small spring is driving the "ticking" of the clock, so does the winding of the springs wind both the large and small spring? Also, it's surprising to me how the small spring could tick accurately, since I would think that it's rate of oscillation changes as the spring unwinds, so that you cannot rely on each tick being a constant amount of time. How is the problem avoided or mitigated?
The mainspring provides all the mechanical energy. The small spring is called the escapement, it spins one way, then back the other at a set frequency (typically 4, 6, or 8 times per second), letting the energy of the mainspring 'escape' gradually (instead of unwinding all at once, in a rush).
So the small spring is what makes it run accurately? I wonder how hard it is to make the small spring accurate without modern tools (1800s technology).
Think of the main spring as the battery, and the balance wheel as a kind of resistor. The balance wheel is manually tuned to oscillate at a specific rate, releasing the stored energy one little beat at a time.
You are right that a mechanical system like that isn't perfect. You will get a kick out of a thing called a "Tourbillon" if you look that up - it was an attempt to improve the accuracy of mechanical movements by having the entire movement rotate as it unwound, in the hope of mitigating the effect of gravity on the accuracy of the watch over the course of the day.
The whole purpose of the website was to answer all these questions. If you had clicked for example on 'Balance' it would have told you what the little spring does and how it's always constant.
I had indeed done that, and it doesn't answer the question I asked to my satisfaction. Comments on a thread like this are a great place to ask technical questions, and I often learn new things by doing so. It's my favorite part of HN. You might find life a bit more pleasant if you didn't assume the rest of the world was just lazy and needed to be shown the error of their ways.
