{"id":207055,"date":"2025-02-23T13:18:44","date_gmt":"2025-02-23T19:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/worlds-most-accurate-clocks-could-redefine-time"},"modified":"2025-02-23T13:18:44","modified_gmt":"2025-02-23T19:18:44","slug":"worlds-most-accurate-clocks-could-redefine-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/worlds-most-accurate-clocks-could-redefine-time","title":{"rendered":"World\u2019s Most Accurate Clocks Could Redefine Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/worlds-most-accurate-clocks-could-redefine-time.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A strontium optical clock produces about 50,000 times more oscillations per second than a cesium clock, the basis for the current definition of a second.<\/p>\n<p>Advances in atomic clocks may lead to a redefinition of the second, replacing the caesium standard (recent work on thorium nuclear transitions is still a long way from taking that role).<\/p>\n<p>Also, NIST uses egg incubators(!) to control temperature &amp; humidity.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>New atomic clocks are more accurate than those used to define the second, suggesting the definition might need to change.<\/p>\n<p>By <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/author\/jay-bennett\/\">Jay Bennett<\/a> edited by <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/author\/clara-moskowitz\/\">Clara Moskowitz<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Inside a laboratory nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, amid a labyrinth of lenses, mirrors, and other optical machinery bolted to a vibration-resistant table, an apparatus resembling a chimney pipe rises toward the ceiling. On a recent visit, the silvery pipe held a cloud of thousands of supercooled cesium atoms launched upward by lasers and then left to float back down. With each cycle, a maser\u2014like a laser that produces microwaves\u2014hit the atoms to send their outer electrons jumping to a different energy state.<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/worlds-most-accurate-clocks-could-redefine-time\">Continue reading \u201cWorld\u2019s Most Accurate Clocks Could Redefine Time\u201d | &gt;<\/a><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A strontium optical clock produces about 50,000 times more oscillations per second than a cesium clock, the basis for the current definition of a second. Advances in atomic clocks may lead to a redefinition of the second, replacing the caesium standard (recent work on thorium nuclear transitions is still a long way from taking that [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nuclear-energy","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}