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A new clock

I am fascinated with time-keeping. I operate a GPS disciplined crystal oscillator that is accurate to within 1.2 X 10^-12 and subscribe to an email list for people of similar interest. Ran into this bit of information today -- from the University of Colorado at Boulder:

JILA strontium atomic clock sets new records in both precision and stability
Heralding a new age of terrific timekeeping, a research group at JILA�a joint institute of the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology�has unveiled an experimental strontium atomic clock that has set new world records for both precision and stability.

The clock is in a laboratory at JILA, located on the CU-Boulder campus.

Described in a new paper in Nature, the JILA strontium lattice clock is about 50 percent more precise than the record holder of the past few years, NIST�s quantum logic clock. Precision refers to how closely the clock approaches the true resonant frequency at which its reference atoms oscillate between two electronic energy levels. The new strontium clock is so precise it would neither gain nor lose one second in about 5 billion years, if it could operate that long. (This time period is longer than the age of the Earth, an estimated 4.5 billion years old.)

Give them ten years and this will be on people's wrists... Posted by DaveH at January 23, 2014 12:16 PM