Lever escapement Lever escapement The lever escapement, invented by British clockmaker Thomas Mudge in 1755, is a type of escapement that is used in almost all mechanical watches, as well as small mechanical non-pendulum clocks, alarm clocks, and kitchen timers. An escapement is a mechanical linkage that gives pushes to the timepiece's balance wheel, keeping it rotating back and forth, and with each swing of the balance wheel allows the timepiece's gear train to advance a fixed amount, thus moving the hands forward at a steady rate. The escapement is what makes the "ticking" sound in mechanical watches and clocks. The lever
Anchor escapement is still a frictional rest escapement because the sliding of the escape tooth on the dead face adds friction to the pendulum's swing, but it has less friction than the recoil escapement because there is no recoil force. In contrast to the backward slant of the anchor escape wheel teeth, the deadbeat escape wheel teeth are radial or slant forward to ensure that the tooth makes contact with the 'dead' face of the pallet, preventing recoil. In 1826 British astronomer George Airy proved that a pendulum that is driven by a drive impulse that is symmetrical about its bottom equilibrium