{"id":235210,"date":"2026-04-14T22:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/using-atomic-nuclei-could-allow-scientists-to-read-time-more-precisely-than-ever"},"modified":"2026-04-14T22:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:27:10","slug":"using-atomic-nuclei-could-allow-scientists-to-read-time-more-precisely-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/using-atomic-nuclei-could-allow-scientists-to-read-time-more-precisely-than-ever","title":{"rendered":"Using atomic nuclei could allow scientists to read time more precisely than ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/using-atomic-nuclei-could-allow-scientists-to-read-time-more-precisely-than-ever.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Most clocks, from wristwatches to the systems that run <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nist.gov\/atomic-clocks\/atomic-time-networked-world\" target=\"_blank\">GPS and the internet<\/a>, work by tracking regular, repeating motions.<\/p>\n<p>To build a clock, you need something that ticks in a perfectly repeatable way. In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/technology\/pendulum\" target=\"_blank\">pendulum clock<\/a>, that tick is the regular swinging of the pendulum: back and forth, back and forth, at nearly the same rate each time.<\/p>\n<p>Our team of physicists studies whether an even better kind of clock could one day be built from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.energy.gov\/science\/doe-explainsnuclei\" target=\"_blank\">atomic nucleus<\/a>. Today\u2019s best clocks already use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nist.gov\/atomic-clocks\" target=\"_blank\">atoms to keep extraordinarily accurate time<\/a>. But in principle, a clock based on a nucleus\u2014the tiny, dense core at the center of an atom\u2014rather than an atom\u2019s electrons, could keep a steadier rhythm because it would be less sensitive to environmental disturbances such as temperature changes. In <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41586-025-09776-4\" target=\"_blank\">our research<\/a>, published in the journal <i>Nature<\/i>, we measured and interpreted a unique nuclear property of thorium-229 in a crystal that could help make such nuclear clocks possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most clocks, from wristwatches to the systems that run GPS and the internet, work by tracking regular, repeating motions. To build a clock, you need something that ticks in a perfectly repeatable way. In a pendulum clock, that tick is the regular swinging of the pendulum: back and forth, back and forth, at nearly the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[418,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235210","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\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}