The second pendulum clock built by Christiaan Huygens, in 1673.
The pendulum clock was invented in 1656 by Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens, and patented the following year. Huygens was inspired by investigations of pendulums by Galileo Galilei beginning around 1602. Galileo discovered the key property butterfly valves that makes pendulums useful timekeepers: isochronism, which means that the period of swing of a pendulum is approximately the same for different sized swings. Galileo had the idea for a pendulum clock in 1637, partly constructed by his son in 1649, but neither lived to finish it. The introduction of the pendulum, the first harmonic oscillator used in timekeeping, increased the accuracy of clocks enormously, from about 15 minutes per day to 15 seconds per day leading to their rapid spread as existing ‘verge and foliot’ clocks were retrofitted with pendulums.

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