Considering they’re basically jumped-up stopwatches, timepieces with a chronograph function definitely have something about them. Perhaps it’s the fact they’ve been integral to the history of automotive sport, aviation and space travel. Perhaps it’s that Paul Newman wore one (his 1968 Rolex Daytona recently became one of the most expensive wristwatches ever sold at auction, fetching $17.75m). Maybe they just look cool.

But what do they actually do and why are they so popular? Essentially a chronograph is a stopwatch. A pusher, usually found at two o’clock, sets a central seconds hand running. The same pusher is used to stop the seconds hand and another pusher at four o’clock resets back to 12. It’s a timer. Anything from 30 minutes to several hours depending on the model, with the seconds, minutes and hours logged on the watch’s subdials.

Yes, there are more complicated versions of it (a rattrapante, for example, has multiple seconds hands that can be stopped and started independently) but it’s essentially a mechanical way of timing anything from a 100m sprint to a perfectly boiled egg.

A chronograph’s charm isn’t all in the breakfast-friendly functionality, though. There’s something boys’ own about the look of them – clean and symmetrical but lots going on nonetheless. It’s hard not to think about a racing car’s dashboard or jet plane’s cockpit when you’re gazing at those subdials.

“I think there is something inherently attractive about chronograph dials. They’re aesthetically interesting and manage to be complicated while being very straightforward to read,” says Dr Rebecca Struthers, watchmaker and co-founder with husband Craig of Struthers London. “I once had a client say the reason they liked chronographs was that the centre seconds hand doesn’t run in normal operation so they look more serene.”