the spring behind the slit stationary. Moving the lever slides the slit up and down the balance spring, changing its effective length, and thus the resonant vibration rate of the balance. Since the regulator interferes with the spring's action, chronometers and some precision watches have ‘free sprung’ balances with no regulator, such as the Gyromax. Their rate is adjusted by weight screws on the balance rim. A balance's vibration rate is traditionally measured in beats (ticks) per hour, or BPH, although beats per second and Hz are also used. The length of a beat is one swing of the balance wheel, between reversals of direction, so there are two beats in a complete cycle. Balances in precision watches are designed with faster beats, because they are less affected by motions of the wrist. Alarm clocks and kitchen timers often have a rate of 4 beats per second (14,400 BPH). Watches made prior to the 1970s usually had a rate of 5 beats per second (18,000 BPH). Current watches have rates of 6 (21,600 BPH), 8 (28,800 BPH) and a few have 10 beats per second (36,000 BPH). Audemars Piguet currently produces a watch with a very high balance vibration rate of 12 beats/s (43,200 BPH). During WWII, Elgin produced a very precise stopwatch that ran at 40 beats per second (144,000 BPH), earning it the nickname 'Jitterbug'. The precision of the best balance wheel watches on the wrist is around a few seconds per day. The most accurate balance wheel timepieces made were marine chronometers, which were used on ships for celestial navigation, as a precise time source to determine longitude. By WWII they had achieved accuracies of 0.1 second per day. Period of oscillation A balance wheel's period of oscillation T in seconds, the time required for one complete cycle (two beats), is determined by the wheel's moment of inertia I in kilogram-meter2 and the stiffness (spring constant) of its balance spring κ in newton-meters per radian: History The balance wheel appeared with the first mechanical clocks, in 14th century Europe, but it seems unknown exactly when or where it was first used. It is an improved version of the foliot, an early inertial timekeeper consisting of a straight bar pivoted in the center with weights on the ends, which oscillates back and forth. The foliot weights could be slid in or out on the bar, to adjust the