Physicists have said they have fine-tuned an atomic clock to the point where it won’t lose or gain a second in 15bn years – longer than the universe has existed.
The “optical lattice” clock ( http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150421/ncomms7896/full/ncomms7896.html ), which uses strontium atoms, is now three times more accurate than a year ago when it set the previous world record, its developers reported in the journal Nature Communications.
The advance brings science a step closer to replacing the current gold standard in timekeeping: the caesium fountain clock that is used to set Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the official world time.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/apr/22/record-breaking-clock-invented-which-only-loses-a-second-in-15-billion-years
[Also Covered By]: http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/22/8466681/most-accurate-atomic-clock-optical-lattice-strontium
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 22 2015, @08:52PM
Wake me up when it's been tested and PROVEN! Or, I can just read the news when I get to the restaurant at the end of the universe.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday April 22 2015, @09:14PM
The damn thing won't last that long, so how could it be accurate at that scale?
Was going to suggest that maybe we should get these Physicists to move on to some more immediate problems. Seems like they have let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2015, @07:07PM
Because what they actually have is a clock with an overall systematic uncertainty of 2.1x10^-18, which you'd know if you'd actually bothered to RTFA. The mainstream press is just translating it to something most people can more easily comprehend.
I doubt this will be useful for timekeeping, we don't really need more accurate as we have to adjust our current ones with leap seconds every so often because of changes in the Earth's rotation. But that doesn't mean there won't be other uses for it.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Wednesday April 22 2015, @09:27PM
That is the least controversial part. At least you could measure and extrapolate and come up with a some sort of estimate.
The controversial part is them claiming to know the universe is less than 15 billion years old!?
How on earth do they know that?
Research in the area isn't even toilet trained yet...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2015, @01:21PM
They looked at its birth certificate. Duh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2015, @07:23PM
If you want to know how they know, then why don't you study it. But I guess the current age of the universe is derived from their best models that actually fit the observed data. There is certainly room for it to be refined further (i.e. date it more precisely with smaller error bars), but doesn't seem likely it will have to be revised significantly, although I wouldn't rule that out until we really know what dark matter and dark energy actually are.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:44AM
You should also.
The science is sooooo in its infancy compared to the other branches which was entirely my point.
Saying pretty much ANYTHING in this field is like predicting the stock market...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Tork on Wednesday April 22 2015, @08:53PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday April 22 2015, @08:55PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Touché) by bob_super on Wednesday April 22 2015, @08:57PM
You just had a little accuracy issue...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday April 22 2015, @09:59PM
If I did the estimate in my head about right, thats about 1 part in 1e16?
COTS GPS disciplined oscillator is like "parts per billion" so around a Hz accuracy at a couple GHz for "fancy RF analog EE stuff" is about right, so this is around a million or so times more accurate than a cheap GPSDO. So its about a million times more accurate that something you can buy for $500 (that admittedly only works because it listens to the GPS satellites)
I guess you could spec DWDM optical fiber laser light to the Hz accuracy or whatever LOL.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday April 23 2015, @01:02AM
For what its worth, the stability in the Efratom Rubidium Atomic Clocks [to-way.com](62 page PDF) (GPS) runs around +/-5E-10 per year....
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 22 2015, @10:14PM
The problem when clocks are this accurate is that differences in height and gravity due tectonic plate differences will make known phenomena like time being local painfully obvious. There simple isn't any global time at this precision. Some serious head scratching and rethink is needed on issues like high precision global
Any ideas on what new discoveries this can enable?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @10:17PM
you have signaled your intelligence
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Dunbal on Wednesday April 22 2015, @10:54PM
Another fine example of meaningless math. I'm willing to bet that this clock will suffer some sort of failure much before 15 billion years pass, if only because of the extinction of the human race meaning it no longer gets serviced. But I'm willing to bet that some component fails long before that happens. I mean honestly what is even the point of calculating such a number?
(Score: 3, Informative) by lentilla on Thursday April 23 2015, @06:54AM
what is even the point of calculating such a number?
Measuring stuff. The history of science is a timeline of progressively better methods and instruments of measuring our physical world.
Here's some interesting titbits:
Measuring our world is a way of defining our place in the universe. Practical applications aside, the fact that we are able to measure things - especially things we can't see - fills me with wonder and a genuine sense of pride in the human race.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2015, @12:11PM
You can express the very same ratio as 1 nanosecond in 15 years. Does it still sound pointless?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 23 2015, @02:01PM
(Score: 1) by throwaway28 on Wednesday April 22 2015, @11:37PM
Someone will probably trip over the power cord in 2 to 3 years. So, a statement like "within 10^-10 seconds over the expected lifetime of the clock", would probably be more accurate.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2015, @02:00AM
The bad news is, nobody will able to figure out the DST calculations rso everything will be presented +/- 3.6e12 nsecs.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bziman on Thursday April 23 2015, @03:10AM
I attended a talk on this new clock by Dr. Campbell, one of the coauthors, at a steampunk convention in Denver a few weeks ago. The tech is really cool, but what was particularly wonderful was her ability to break down such a sophisticated topic into terms that a roomful of literature geeks could understand, while not hand waving away the tough parts. And as someone who studied physics, it was fantastic to see a woman with a PhD doing cutting edge research in a field so strongly dominated by men.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday April 23 2015, @07:55AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2015, @12:20PM
No, it won't. Rather, the elapsed time at both places will be different.
If you're closer to the pole, measuring the distance between two meridians will give a smaller value. But not because your measuring tape gets longer near the pole, but because the distance between meridians gets shorter. It's the exact same with time at different gravitational potential: It's not that your clock is slower, it's that the time difference is smaller.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bziman on Thursday April 23 2015, @01:23PM
That's actually the whole point. This isn't for keeping time over billions of years. It is for measuring really tiny variations in timing at different locations. Among other things, it could increase accuracy of GPS by an order of magnitude. It can also be used to help measure space time curvature and gravitation effects, which is helpful for people trying to understand the nature of the universe. The tech they are using involves holding particles in a stable but unknown quantum state, which could have applications for quantum computing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2015, @07:36PM
Anyone ever notice that although you see this kind of comment constantly, you never see a comment like:
?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2015, @02:14PM
How do they know the real time? Averages? Pixie dust?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2015, @06:21PM
Indeed; how do they actually know how accurate it is, if there is no way to compare it something more accurate?
Other than that, I'd think at some point (which we have probably passed quite a few years ago), clocks would be "sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes". What's the point? What would this new clock enable us to do which was previously not possible?