In 2008, a team of UCLA-led scientists proposed a scheme to use a laser to excite the nucleus of thorium atoms to realize extremely accurate, portable clocks. Last year, they realized this ...

The field of optical atomic clocks, in combination with ultracold atoms, has transformed precision timekeeping and metrology. By utilising laser-cooled atoms confined in optical lattices, researchers ...

Atomic clocks record time using microwaves at a frequency matched to electron transitions in certain atoms. They are the basis upon which a second is defined. But there is a new kid on the block, the ...

NIST scientists have published results establishing a new atomic clock, NIST-F4, as one of the world’s most accurate timekeepers, priming the clock to be recognized as a primary frequency standard — ...

As if timekeeping in the U.S. wasn’t already pretty accurate, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) just declared a new atomic clock, the NIST-F2, to ...

(TNS) — In 2003, engineers from Germany and Switzerland began building a bridge across the Rhine River simultaneously from both sides. Months into construction, they found that the two sides did not ...

At this point, atomic clocks are old news. They’ve been quietly keeping our world on schedule for decades now, and have been through several iterations with each generation gaining more accuracy. They ...

On Earth, knowing the time feels simple. Your phone pings the same second as a GPS satellite and an atomic clock in a lab.

Vladan Vuletić with members of his Experimental Atomic Physics group. From left to right: Matthew Radzihovsky, Leon Zaporski, Qi Liu, Vladan Vuletić, and Gustavo Velez. Every time you check the time ...

This temporal lag is a direct consequence of Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. The rule is simple: the weaker ...