ELI5: How does mechanical watch works?

Imagine your toy car, but super tiny and powered by a spring! That's basically how a mechanical watch works.

Think about winding up a toy. You're storing energy in a spring, right?

Here's how that stored energy tells time in a watch:

• The Mainspring: This is the spring inside the watch. When you wind the watch (or it winds automatically with your movement), you're tightening this mainspring, storing energy.

• Gears (Wheels): The mainspring slowly unwinds, releasing its stored energy. This energy turns a series of tiny gears (wheels). These gears are like the gears in your bicycle, but much smaller and precisely made. Each gear turns at a different speed.

• Escapement: This is the "tick-tock" part. It's like a little gate that only lets the gears move a tiny bit at a time. It controls how fast the mainspring unwinds so the time is accurate. It has a balance wheel that swings back and forth. Each swing releases a little bit of power to the gears.

• Hands: The gears are connected to the hands on the watch face. Because the gears turn at different speeds, one gear moves the hour hand slowly, another moves the minute hand faster, and another moves the second hand even faster.