Lot 486

Achille Brocot / Delettrez, France, Height 445 mm, circa 1860
A half hour/hour striking mantle clock with date and month indicator
Case: brass, gilt, moulded white marble base and top, facet glazed on four sides. Dial: enamel, gilt mask, sunken center with visible Brocot escapement. Movm.: square brass clock movement, 2 barrels, 1 hammers, 1 bell, steel pendulum rod with brass bob, pendulum spring suspension.
Louis "Achille" Brocot (1817–1878)
Achille Brocot was a French clockmaker and amateur mathematician. He is known for his discovery (independently of and contemporaneously with German number theorist Moritz Stern) of the Stern–Brocot tree, a mathematical structure useful in approximating real numbers by rational numbers; this sort of approximation is an important part of the design of gear ratios for clocks. He also made many other horological innovations including refinement of his father Louis-Gabriel's Brocot escapement and the development of clocks with perpetual calendar mechanisms.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achille_Brocot, as of 02/20/2014.

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