Why won't my wife's watches work?

[chakka35]

Whenever my wife wears a wholly-mechanical watch it stops, now matter how much or how little I paid for it. It then performs perfectly on me or on the shelf.

But quartz watches work fine on her, which seems to indicate that she has some effect on the hair-spring escapement of a mechanical watch. What can this influence be?

Have other people experienced this? If so, have they an explanation? I don't mean a vague one like "Well you see, it's the electricity from her body�" to which I am bound to ask "What electricity? How can it stop a hairspring? Does it magnetise alternate spirals so that they stick together? If so, how? Why doesn't it happen with everyone?" and so on�

Any offers?

[Clanad]

You'll probably have lot's of different theories chakka35 (welcome back, by the way... missed you)... It does actually happen to some people. It's been reported that a number of people share a common phenomena along with "watch stopping" and that's an abnormal (at least to them) predisposition to static electric shocks... the kind we all experience from time to time, especially in winter. As to the mechanism of it all works... haven't a clue, except that it must have some electromagnetic basis... (Big help, huh?)

[figure]

Chakka35, that also happens to my wind-up watches and me.
I too have spent lots on servicing my watches and they are still the same.

[naomi24]

I also know someone to whom that happens. I don't know why - so that's no help!

[Robb Phoenix]

Is it manually wound or is there a winding rotor?

[rojash]

I have the same problem - and the more expensive the watch, the sooner it goes wrong - no idea why, but I just stick to quartz watches...

[taichiperson]

I had a friend who suffered from this, when quartz watches were rare. He wore a wrist band under his watch - I'm not sure how effective it was, but it's worth a try.
It might be interesting to go to a therapist who is energy sensitive and find out what they had to say - maybe Reiki?

[chakka35]

Thanks, folks. It was interesting to learn about others who have the same problem and also to realise that the phenomenon doesn't appear to have been researched. Or has it? I can find no sign of such an investigation so far.
If you Google 'stopping watches' or some such (as I did just now) you'll find at least one Q&A site to which a number of people have contributed - none with a solution.

Clanad, thanks for your greeting; I'm still around but not on R&S any more; I just got bored with pretending to take superstition seriously.

Robb Phoenix : both.

taichiperson, I'm afraid that expressions like "a therapist who is energy sensitive" causes all my crackpot-detection alarms to go off loudly. I looked up Reiki and, sure enough, it's the sort of barmy quackery I expected. If I were to suggest it to my wife she'd be even more convinced of my looniness than she is now.

[Robb Phoenix]

How much time does it take before stopping?

[chakka35]

Robb, this has been going on for years and I'm afraid we didn't keep records. Typically (pre-quartz) she would go off in the morning with a new watch and come home in the evening saying "It's stopped, as usual."

She may have noticed it within half-an-hour or several hours depending on what she was doing. it made no difference: as soon as it came off her wrist it would work.

[naomi24]

Chakka, I've had a little browse on the web, and it seems it's mainly attributed to static electricity in the body, although I can't find any reference to scientific investigations having been carried out.

[figure]

Hello Naomi - I send sparks flying almost every time I touch something. So maybe static electricity in the body must surely have something to do with wearing this sort of watch.
That thought did cross my mind but I shrugged it off.

[Robb Phoenix]

Does it word when:
She tries it on her other hand
you put an adhesive tape on back of the watch.

[Robb Phoenix]

*work

[mcooky]

I have a theory.

When something is statically charged it will be positive or negative, the skin, becomes positive in charge and if I'm right in thinking there are Nickel parts in watches they would become negative in charge.
These two charges attract each other, like magnets, theoretically stopping movement of something in the watch.

Hope that helped and I hope I'm right. :)

[chakka35]

Robb I'll try both of those things.

mcooky, I'm afraid that I'm one of those boringly rational people who analyses these things rather rigorously. So...


Do you know that skin becomes positively charged or are you just guessing? And why doesn't it discharge when you touch a tap or any other earthed object ('faucet' and 'grounded' to you, Clanad)?

Why should nickel, in particular, become negatively charged and, since it is a metal, why doesn't it discharge immediately through all the metal in the watch, which is touching the (allegedly) positively-charged skin?

A quartz watch often has the same metal case and metal gear-train to drive the hands. Only the escapement is different, which, I think, is made of springy steel in a mechanical watch.

Since (as others say) static electricity is usually held responsible, I still find it odd that no-one has explained how and why.
If I open a subscription list to fund me in a research programme on this subject will you each cough up �1000
please? No, make it five grand. Ten, maybe? What do you think?

[Robb Phoenix]

mcooky is wrong,
The body can not have a charge unless you stand on a non conducting surface. The body form an equipotential surface with the atmosphere.If you touch anything with a charge- you earth it. That is why you get zapped!

If the watch completely stops working I have a theory:
The acid from the skin is probably causing corrosion to the mechanical components in the watches which have very fine tolerances. This could be why the quartz watch is not stopping while mechanical watches stop. Does she also corrode base metals?

[Robb Phoenix]

Sadly it doesn't :-(

[mibn2cweus]

Have you tried having sex while she's wearing the watch? You know what they say about time when your having fun!

[wildwood]

We've tried that mibs, it doesn't help either... but we keep trying. lol
My missus has the same problem.
We were advised to get a S/S watch by a jeweler which we did at rather great expense. Have we been duped?

Don't want to go through the whole thread again but is it only women who experience this phenomenon? This alone should be significant enough to be awarded an Answerbank funded research grand chakka.

[mibn2cweus]

Does she look like this or like this or this?
In any case haven�t we all heard of (or seen) women �with a face that could stop a clock� for reasons that should be quite apparent . . .

. . . although the phenomenon may not be limited to only woman.