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An invention born in a dusty basement two decades ago called the Sapphire clock may be the key to future technology innovation in Australia starting with the defence systems:
A CLOCK that will protect Australia is about to be integrated into our defence systems to pinpoint any threats targeting our nation.
In fact, the clock is the best in the world because of its ability to hold time better than anything else. [*]
Basically, the Sapphire Clock keeps time within one second over 40 million years.
The reason that's important is because its precision accuracy enhances our current defence radar system, allowing even more detailed information to be received about missiles, planes and ships that could be a threat to Australia.
University of Adelaide's Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing director Professor Andre Luiten said the technology that could save Australia came about in a "dusty basement" 20 years ago.
[...] The Sapphire Clock was designed to work alongside Australia's current linchpin for defence, the Jindalee Over-The-Horizon Radar Network (JORN) system, to emit signals that are 1000 times purer than current methods, which means even smaller objects can be seen at even greater distances.
[*] Maybe they are not aware of atomic clocks, some of which are accurate to 1 second in billions of years?
See also: https://www.adelaide.edu.au/ipas/research/nls/pmg-research/SapphireClock/
(Score: 2) by SparkyGSX on Friday August 31 2018, @02:57PM (13 children)
I'd really like to know exactly what "precision accuracy" is.
Are the existing clocks insufficiently accurate? How accurate does a clock need to be? You don't need to know the position of an enemy ship down to the nano-meter.
1 second in 40 million years is about 1 in 1.3*10^15. Say you are measuring something 1000km away (2000km round trip), with radar of lidar or something else that relies on the time of flight, the maximum deviation would be... about 1.6nm (nano-meters).
This sounds a lot like someone who has a pet project and figured out the defense department has a lot of money.
If you do what you did, you'll get what you got
(Score: 2) by Snow on Friday August 31 2018, @03:27PM (5 children)
Just throwing out unqualified suggestions here... but maybe it's more to do with calculating the velocity of an object.
(Score: 2, Touché) by redneckmother on Friday August 31 2018, @05:04PM (1 child)
... as in an "unladen swallow"?
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday August 31 2018, @05:46PM
You're getting ahead of yourself, you've got to find the coconuts, first.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:17AM (1 child)
african or domestic?
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @05:54AM
"African, or European?"
And the appropriate response is:
"How do you know so much about sparrows?"
Followed by: "You have to know these things when you're king, you know."
And then there is the Tweet. Obviously, one need know nothing to be President! Not even where, or what, Nipple is, or Button!
My gawd, the man is an idiot. Complete ignoramous. Dumb as a bag of hammers. No wonder he went into Real Estate. And Russian Mobs. Will not end well for him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @04:40AM
INCOMING!!!!!!!
velocity? who cares, just duck.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Friday August 31 2018, @03:37PM
This sounds like some standard University PR garbled into gibberish by the standard sort of "science reporter" whose degree is in the history of Ethiopian pottery in 4000BC, but who once sat next to a science major on a bus while they were a student.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @03:42PM
Presumably, there's uncertainty propagation involved here and the technology is intended for possible future uses that haven't yet been developed. Or, perhaps this is just an effort to mislead people into thinking that they need this level of precision.
But, when you've got things that are moving extremely quickly and where you've got multiple things, imprecisions lead to compounding errors, especially where things are moving extremely quickly where that fraction of a fraction of a second becomes just a fraction of the total time. Could be important with railguns and lasers coming.
Although, I question a bit why this is so important now when the device has apparently been sitting in storage for so long.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday August 31 2018, @04:29PM (1 child)
I know what precision is. Think "number of decimal places measured" in a base-10 number, for example. (Nothing to do with how close to the right value.)
I know what accuracy is. "How close to the right value." (Nothing to do with how many decimal places measured.)
"Precision accuracy," however? Good luck.
precision [wolfram.com], accuracy [wolfram.com], commonly confused terms [sciencenotes.org], word salad [thoughtco.com]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday August 31 2018, @06:36PM
Obviously, it is contra-orthagonal to "accurate precision". Easy peasy, squeezy lemon.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday August 31 2018, @05:26PM (1 child)
Without lowering myself to read the article, I would speculate that better clocks are needed for signal processing of the return signal. With an advanced waveform and receiver, multipath signals can be recombined into a stronger signal. Similarly, weak signals can be detected well below the noise floor.
These techniques are in use in cell phone systems, and require precise timing. I don't know how much it would improve the situation to have better timing, but better's better, I guess.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Friday August 31 2018, @07:34PM
Weren't the early failures of the Patriot missile system during the first Gulf War due to clock issues? If I recall correctly, a bug in the timing causes the phased array radar to not look in the direction the incoming missile was at.
I think the correction was to reboot the system's computer every day or so to fix the error.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:15AM
a 'clock' is a general term for things that deal with time.
frequency is also a 'thing' related to time.
so is phase.
having a very stable and low-jitter 'clock' brings many measurement benefits.
perhaps that's enough info for you?
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."