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Record Breaking Clock Accurate to one Second in 15 Billion Years

posted by martyb on Wednesday April 22 2015, @08:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the let-the-good-times-roll dept.

AnonTechie writes:

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

 
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  • (Score: 1) by throwaway28 on Wednesday April 22 2015, @11:37PM

    by throwaway28 (5181) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @11:37PM (#174162) Journal

    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.