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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   
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

• Nice clock you got there, have you seen my gravity Nice clock you got there, have you seen my gravity (Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 22 2015, @10:14PM

  by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @10:14PM (#174136) Journal

  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?

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• Re:Nice clock you got there, have you seen my grav (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @10:17PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @10:17PM (#174138)

  you have signaled your intelligence

  Parent