Escapement Chinese escapement spread west and was the source for Western escapement technology. According to Ahmad Y. Hassan, a mercury escapement in a Spanish work for Alfonso X in 1277 can be traced back to earlier Arabic sources. Knowledge of these mercury escapements may have spread through Europe with translations of Arabic and Spanish texts. However, none of these were true mechanical escapements, since they still depended on the flow of liquid through an orifice to measure time. For example, in Su Song's clock, water flowed into a container on a pivot. The escapement's role was to tip the container over
Escapement main advantage of the deadbeat is that it eliminated recoil. In the deadbeat, the pallets have a second curved "locking" face on them, concentric about the pivot on which the anchor turns. During the extremities of the pendulum's swing, the escape wheel tooth rests against this locking face, providing no impulse to the pendulum, which prevents recoil. Near the bottom of the pendulum's swing the tooth slides off the locking face onto the angled "impulse" face, giving the pendulum a push, before the pallet releases the tooth. This was the first escapement to separate the locking and impulse actions of