Tag Archives: optical atomic clocks

Clocks on the cusp of a nuclear age

Posted on July 6, 2024 by

You need three things to build a clock: an energy source, a resonator, and a counter. In an analog wrist watch, for example, a small battery is the energy source that sends a small electric signal to a quartz crystal, … Continue reading →

Posted in Scicomm, Science | Tagged caesium standard, calcium fluoride, fine structure constant, frequency comb, Indian Standard Time, ISOLDE, lithium strontium hexafluoroaluminate, metastability, nuclear clock, nuclear isomer, nuclear physics, optical atomic clocks, Planck equation, strong interaction parameter, strong nuclear force, thorium-229, thorium-229m, vacuum ultraviolet | Comments Off

The clocks that used atoms and black holes to stay in sync

Posted on February 20, 2021 by

You’re familiar with clocks. There’s probably one if you look up just a little, at the upper corner of your laptop or smartphone screen, showing you what time of day it is, allowing you to quickly grasp the number of … Continue reading →

Posted in Scicomm | Tagged atomic clocks, caesium standard, caesium-133, Event Horizon Telescope, frequency comb, hydrogen maser, International Celestial Reference Frame, Kashima, Koganei, Medicine, microwave clocks, Milky Way, optical atomic clocks, quasars, radio telescopes, SI units, strontium clock, uncertainty, Very-Long Baseline Interferometry, VLBI, ytterbium clock | Comments Off