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was the pendulum clock, patented by Christiaan Huygens in 1657. This gave an increase in accuracy of about 30-fold over previous mechanical clocks - the best pendulum clocks were accurate to about 10 seconds per day. From the start, Huygens intended his clocks to be used for determination of longitude at sea. However, pendulum clocks did not tolerate the motion of a ship sufficiently well, and after a series of trials it was concluded that other approaches would

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