Charles Édouard Guillaume's Balance Wheel

Origin
Nobel Prize winning physicist Charles Édouard Guillaume had managed to create accurate measuring devices with specific nickel alloys. Under extreme temperature changes, many precision instruments would expand and contract, skewing any measurements made. At least until Guillaume discovered the nickel-steel alloys of invar and elinvar.

Invar had a near zero coefficient of thermal expansion, while elinvar had almost no modulus of elasticity, which meant any object would experience only microscopic change in size from heat and cold. As the son of a horologist, Guillaume applied his discoveries to marine chronometers, coating the balance wheel in a variation of invar, allowing the ticks to remain in a better matching pattern.

Effects
Each side is coated with one alloy. Placing it upon an object will cause it to move less wildly, until it has slowed down to complete immobility.