Inventions & Discoveries · Science and discovery

Pendulum clock

1656 · 17th century

A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a swinging weight, the pendulum, as its timekeeping element; it was invented on 25 December 1656 by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens, inspired by Galileo Galilei's investigations of pendulums, and patented the following year. The pendulum improved the accuracy of clocks from about 15 minutes to 15 seconds a day, and many existing verge-and-foliot clocks were fitted with one. Pendulum clocks remained the world standard for accurate timekeeping until the invention of the quartz clock in 1927.

Pendulum clock
Image: Christiaan Huygens · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

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First known
1656
Where
The Netherlands
Built onMechanical clockby 1300

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See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Pendulum clock. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/pendulum-clock
MLA
“Pendulum clock.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/pendulum-clock. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Pendulum clock.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/pendulum-clock.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Pendulum clock’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/pendulum-clock (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻