Slashdot Mirror
New Atomic Clock Could Redefine the Second
bmahersciwriter writes "The new type of clock, called an optical lattice clock could replace the cesium fountain clocks used as the standard for time keeping. Indeed, it could redefine the second. The cesium fountain is predicted to keep time within one second over 100 million years. While other atomic clocks are better than that, researchers suspect the optical lattice is better still and could one day replace the standard."
My watch is made in china.
Yeah, no more sloppy seconds!
The new (less than a decade old) optical latice clocks (OLC's) in which 10,000 atoms of strontium-87 are trapped in (what else) an optical lattice have been shown to be better (within 1.5x10^-16) than the current world standard cesium fountain clocks (within 3x10^-16), but haven't yet beat the best clocks, which are measuring emissions from single ions trapped in an electro-magnetic field (within 1x10^-17). But researchers are hopeful that OLC's will eventually emerge as the new standard because 10,000 atoms beat 1 atom for measurement statistics and because the other two technologies measure frequencies in the microwave spectrum, while the optical lattice clock is measuring in the visible spectrum. Statistics and higher frequencies should eventually win out as the technology matures.