{"id":231795,"date":"2026-02-21T09:10:53","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T15:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/mit-physicists-improve-the-precision-of-atomic-clocks"},"modified":"2026-02-21T09:10:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T15:10:53","slug":"mit-physicists-improve-the-precision-of-atomic-clocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/mit-physicists-improve-the-precision-of-atomic-clocks","title":{"rendered":"MIT physicists improve the precision of atomic clocks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/mit-physicists-improve-the-precision-of-atomic-clocks.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Every time you check the time on your phone, make an online transaction, or use a navigation app, you are depending on the precision of atomic clocks.<\/p>\n<p>An atomic clock keeps time by relying on the \u201cticks\u201d of atoms as they naturally oscillate at rock-steady frequencies. Today\u2019s atomic clocks operate by tracking cesium atoms, which tick over 10 billion times per second. Each of those ticks is precisely tracked using lasers that oscillate in sync, at microwave frequencies.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists are developing next-generation atomic clocks that rely on even faster-ticking atoms such as ytterbium, which can be tracked with lasers at higher, optical frequencies. If they can be kept stable, optical atomic clocks could track even finer intervals of time, up to 100 trillion times per second.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every time you check the time on your phone, make an online transaction, or use a navigation app, you are depending on the precision of atomic clocks. An atomic clock keeps time by relying on the \u201cticks\u201d of atoms as they naturally oscillate at rock-steady frequencies. Today\u2019s atomic clocks operate by tracking cesium atoms, which [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1512,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mobile-phones","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231795","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\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231795\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}