In a quartz watch a battery runs current through a synthetic quartz crystal, which vibrates at 32, 600 beats per second.

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Well, if you have ever observed how the second hand of a mechanical watch moves, you know that it appears to run smoothly (in stark contrast to the second hand of a quartz watch, which makes a little jump once a second).

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It all began during my first overseas trip to Southeast Asia when I happened to spot that the "in" watch among self-respecting Special Forces operators was a Seiko Quartz Diving Watch.

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The Japanese brands of Seiko and Citizen were booking solid sales year after year, why even the film character James Bond has ceased wearing a Swiss timepiece in favor of a Pulsar or Seiko Digital Quartz watch.

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The quartz movement does not require battery changes, as a rotor in the watch moves with the motion of your wrist to charge the internal battery.

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Seiko introduced the first quartz watch on Christmas Day, 1969, and everyone, the Swiss included, rushed to adopt a technology that was at once more reliable, more accurate and much cheaper to produce.

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