Philippe René Jaccard (b. 1897). Born in Besançon, the son of master adjuster Alfred Jaccard, Philippe René Jaccard was an ingenious watchmaker and technician. His reputation was established with the invention of a constant force mechanism which could work as long as four days or more.The watch is remarkable. All other balance spring escapements give an impulse to the balance, with the balance spring being utilized only for isochronism. Jaccard revolutionized horological thinking by using the end of the balance spring for the impulse. The principle is simple; the hairspring's stud is loosely mounted in a small pallet that receives an impulse from a 60-tooth escape wheel which simply pushes the tip of the pallet. The pallet moving the stud gives an impulse to the balance. The return swing brings the pallet back in front of the next tooth. The locking and unlocking detents are very cleverly controlled by the small pallet. The escapement, which is unidirectional and fairly detached, is also silent. There is no banking as in other escapements, which would produce noise. In this aspect it resembles Harrison's grasshopper escapement, in which the impulse action is very similar to this one. Furthermore, the escapement does not require oil. As all watchmakers know, oil, orather its changing viscosity, is an inherent problem in horology. It was Breguet who said “give me perfect oil and I will give you a perfect watch”. Recently, Omega launched a series of watches with Daniels' coaxial escapement which needs no oil. The present watch illustrates that Omega has a long tradition of thinking and experimentation on the subject.