The DeWitt Academia Endless Drive is a striking embodiment of the concept of perpetual motion. Or perhaps, endless labor. The handsome watch’s dial is dominated by a vertical element in the very center of the watch face: an elongated screw that has no endpoints, but just twirls up and down into the bezel.
DeWitt’s new Academia Endless Drive is features an element called the Endless Screw, which leads itself to some inevitable jokes about life in Universities. Indeed, some professor friends of mine might argue that Academia is already an endless screw, and not in a good way, and there was no need to make a watch to illustrate their pain. And for them, we take a moment of silence. But then we move on.
The screw at the center of the DeWitt Academia Endless Drive is actually inspired by automotive mechanics. This is actually a continuing source of inspiration for brand founder Count Jérôme DeWitt, so it comes as no surprise. The watch itself, however, is a surprise, as it combines sleek, shiny displays with polished exposed mechanical works, to create a watch face of unexpected beauty.
That central screw is an incorporation of the winding of the DeWitt Academia Endless Drive. In a way, it is always in motion, either rising or falling. The helical screw is linked to the 59-hour power reserve’s winding system.
The screw has two ways of moving. As the 59-hour power reserve is used up, the screw rotates. However, when the user begins to wind the watch, then the process begins its hand-wound reversal. When the barrel is wound, the screw slides on its longitudinal axis. This leaves the screw in eternal motion, but always at the discretion of the wearer of the Academia Endless Drive. If he or she remains diligent, then the watch remains wound, and always in motion, one way or another. But if he or she fails in the duty, alas. The screw winds down, the power reserve is exhausted, and in the words of the novelist, the machine stops. So let us hope that the buyers of the DeWitt Academia Endless Drive are stalwart in their duty, and that the light of this little miniature universe never go out.
