The Mikrotimer 1/1000th 1966

They had a name but the Mikrotimer captured them

Scientists named them, but couldn't measure them: milliseconds. Recording them was watchmaking's holy grail. 50 years before TAG Heuer captured 100ths of a second. In 1966 the Mikrotimer measured 1000ths.

Some numbers seem too big to comprehend: the speed of light, the size of our universe. Some things, like electrons, are so tiny we struggle to picture them. What is a millisecond? Imagine the second hand on your watch, and mentally divide each tick by a thousand. What could happen in such a minuscule timescale? How could anyone possibly have measured it?

The 1960s brought revolution to art and life: Andy Warhol, civil rights, man on the moon. Our modern technological world was also born then. So many inventions we can't do without were created: compact disks, handheld calculators, lasers. In the middle of the decade, the Mikrotimer was a revolution, confirming TAG Heuer as the cutting edge of timekeeping.

It still looks futuristic, almost science fiction. It was electronic, and that was the breakthrough. After it, mechanical timekeeping faded from sport, and TAG Heuer forged its alliances with the motor racing elites. So, what can we measure in 1000ths of seconds? The activity of our brains, for one. Or the difference between the winner and second place.