And why wouldn't it work? Linear slide like mechanisms consisting of a silver surface and single molecule have been demonstrated[0]. The molecule only moved along rows of the silver surface. It was demonstrated to stay in one of these grooves up to 150 nm. A huge distance at this scale.

[0]https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1767839

At some point, making mechanical watches more complicated will require going digital. It is possible to make very small gears with semiconductor processes, however, very small gears wear out fast due to stiction.

In order for gears to work they must have sliding contact and that means wear. Mechanisms based on flexures don't have this problem, but this requires building the clock very differently. It might be possible to implement many of these complications using flexure based logic[0].

[0]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08678-0

This will probably need to be updated soon. There are rumors NIF recently achieved a gain of ~4.4 and ~10% fuel burn up. Being able to ignite more fuel is notable in and of itself.

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

A similar single motor robot hand has been made that uses electrostatic clutches instead of mechanical clutches[O].

[0]https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.08469