====== Jaquet-Droz, Pierre ======
{{wst>image_r|Jaquet-Droz,_Pierre|Pierre Jaquet-Droz ([[1721]]-[[1790]])}}
**Pierre Jaquet-Droz** was a Swiss watchmaker and [[automaton]] builder.

Pierre Jaquet-Droz was a famous watchmaker and like his son [[Jaquet-Droz, Henri-Louis|Henri-Louis]] (1752-1791), a brilliant designer of clocks and automata (the so-called androids). He was born July 28, [[1721]] in [[Villeret]] and died on November 28, [[1790]] in [[Biel]].

The androids built by him were mechanically driven characters which, for example, wrote a word on a piece of paper, a drew a portrait or played music on a keyboard See "The Scribe", "The Musician" and "The draftsman" in the Museum of Art-History [[Neuchâtel]]. These legendary machines became world famous - and almost brought their inventors to be burnt on pyre for alleged witchcraft.

Jaquet-Droz, moreover, about [[1755]] invented a unique form of [[automatic]] winding for watches. As an energy source he used the different expansion behavior of two metals at temperature fluctuations, which he converted into kinetic energy.

The watch manufacturer [[Jaquet Droz]], belonging to the [[Swatch Group]], is named after Pierre Jaquet-Droz.


{{tag>Biographies}}