Wristwatches have been both a fashion statement and a utility device for more than a century. Their usage has declined with the advent of smartphones which can mark time, facilitate communication, take photographs and access the internet, but there was a time when the wristwatch was ubiquitous.
They came in swimmer’s models which were resistant to water, diver’s models which were tested waterproof to certain depths, calculator watches for the mathematically challenged and racer’s watches which included stopwatch functions.
The Biostar, from respected Swiss watchmaker Certina, successfully cornered one market that no other manufacturer had considered: biorhythms.
Biorhythms, for anyone not around during the 1970s, was a very popular and highly dubious theory that people’s lives operated according to sine wave cycles, shifting from low points to high on the physical, emotional and intellectual levels. During any given day, you could determine if you were at your physical nadir or height of potential brilliance by examining your biorhythms. Your birthdate and the natural cycles told all.
It might sound like astrology but unlike being guided by the stars, it was scientific. People could see that because it had electronic waves, like an oscilloscope. Very sciencey.
If you want to see what yours might look like, you can check online here. Or you could save yourself the hassle of internet searches and just buy a Biostar. They included the three cycles of human response time, so a purchaser could set the watch to their birth date, then watch the dials to determine whether this was a day of peak performance in some aspect of their lives.
Keep in mind, the Biostar currently sells for $1000 and more on the secondary market. If you’re looking to purchase one as anything other than a watch collector’s oddity… you’re probably in a “down” intellectual cycle.
Question of the night: Biorhythms, horoscopes, mood rings, magnet bracelets, pyramid power… what’s your favorite type of pseudoscience?
