Lederer Launches A New Version Of The Central Impulse Chronometer, With ‘EinStein’ Dial
The new watch uses a non-repeating pattern only recently discovered – by an amateur mathematical hobbyist.
The Central Impulse Chronometer watches from Lederer are among the most painstakingly thought-through examples of solving horological problems produced by any watchmaker today, and the technical solutions they present are answers to problems which are hundreds of years old. The latest watch from Lederer combines the CIC movement with a dial that showcases what mathematicians call an aperiodic tiling – a tiled surface covered by a single type of tile, but one in which the pattern never repeats. Such a tile is called an “einstein” tile – not after the great physicist; it’s a portmanteau of the German “ein stein” or “one stone.”
Typically, tiles are formed of regular shapes which form a repeating pattern. A trivial example is a surface tiled with squares, or one tiled with triangles; the pattern formed repeats indefinitely, and will do so even if extended to an infinite flat plane. The question of whether or not an aperiodic tiling could be created with a single tile, or shape, was an open problem until just a few years ago, when, in 2023, David Smith, an amateur mathematician and retired print technician who was fascinated by the einstein problem, independently discovered the first known example of an einstein tile.
Before Smith’s discovery, one near-solution had been discovered by the physicist Roger Penrose, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 2020, and whose work with Stephen Hawking led to the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems, which demonstrate that massive stars must naturally collapse into black holes with singularities at their centers. The Penrose tiling was discovered in the period 1973-1974, and shows a fivefold symmetry which at first was thought to be purely abstract, and not occur in nature.
It was later discovered that some solid materials, including some metal alloys, exhibit such structures in their crystal lattices; these are called “quasicrystals.”
Smith’s discovery, however, requires just a single tile, which can tile an infinite plane without ever producing a repeating pattern.
Lederer’s EinStein dials are not duplicates of a single patten. Instead, Lederer generates an einstein tiling which is different for each watch. Since the tiling is aperiodic, no two watches will have the same dial and each watch will be unique.
In order to give the pattern greater depth and visual impact, Lederer has not simply stamped or engraved the pattern on the dial; instead, each tile is surrounded by a vertical wall that emphasizes the structure of the pattern.
The Central Impulse Chronometer escapement and Lederer caliber 9012 are well known, especially among enthusiasts focused on chronometry. The movement has two independent going trains ending in two remontoirs, which drive the escape wheels of the CIC dual impulse escapement. This escapement extends the idea behind the Breguet “natural” escapement, in which two escape wheels drive the balance directly, and is also an evolution of the double wheel escapement used by George Daniels in his Space Traveler watches.
No word yet on pricing or availability, but it’s a very interesting combination of an exotic escapement with a solution to an equally exotic problem in mathematics.
The LEDERER EinStin Dial Central Impulse Chronometer: Case, 44mm x 12.2mm, 18k rose gold, water resistance 30 meters with sapphire crystals front and back. Movement, LEDERER caliber 9012, hand wound, with Dual Detent Escapement with two 10 second remontoirs d’égalité, two independent barrels and independent gear trains and two independent escape wheels, running at 21,600 vph in 45 jewels; power reserve 38 hours. In-house dial, with unique einstein pattern. For more information, visit LedererTimepieces.com.