Re: I prefer this kind of clock or watch:

[swampyankee]

in reply to I prefer this kind of clock or watch:

I've yet to see a watch that moves its hands in a continuous, as opposed to jerky fashion, so I guess you can argue analogue watches don't really exist (except for those sundials, which tend to be less than portable).

I do, however, prefer the watches which do have those hand thingies to the ones which just have digits.

[ambrus]

I have seen a watch whose seconds hand rotated continuously (or at least it leaped more often than once per second). It was wierd.

[Anonymous Monk]

guess you can argue analogue watches don't really exist

Sure, but only if you want to get all theoretical. Yes, quantum mechanics does state that all matter is discrete at the quantum level, and individual atoms are of course somewhat discrete entities, but that's a bit extreme. If you take that point of view, practially nothing is analogue -- at least, nothing tangible.

My father had a watch with hands that ran quite smoothly; they may not be as popular as the "retro" jerky-motion watches currently in fashion, but they certainly existed and continue to exist.

[apotheon]

On the other hand, unless you want to get down to the level of quanta, you could still call it analog if it has a mechanical timepiece motion — it only approximates non-analog functionality that way.

Also, of course, you could argue that even at the quantum level things are actually analog, since quanta are really only probability waveforms (from a certain perspective at least).

This could get messy if I keep going. . . .