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No love for my Caesium Soup clock......
http://pda.physorg.com/news/2011-08-...-accuracy.html
An atomic clock at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has the best long-term accuracy of any in the world, research has found.
Studies of the clock's performance, to be published in the journal Metrologia, show it is nearly twice as accurate as previously thought.
The clock would lose or gain less than a second in some 138 million years.
The UK is among the handful of nations providing a "standard second" that keeps the world on time.
However, the international race for higher accuracy is always on, meaning the record may not stand for long.
The NPL's CsF2 clock is a "caesium fountain" atomic clock, in which the "ticking" is provided by the measurement of the energy required to change a property of caesium atoms known as "spin".
By international definition, it is the electromagnetic waves required to accomplish this "spin flip" that are measured; when 9,192,631,770 peaks and troughs of these waves go by, one standard second passes.
No love for my Caesium Soup clock......
Heh, there is an art to getting a thread le right.No love for my Caesium Soup clock......
"Consevative idiots cling to old technology"
or
"Lib sheeple go along with new measurement"
Would have gotten something, heh.
"Ron Paul endorses new technology" would be a sure fire winner.
Nothing says the le has to be exactly true.
I'm wondering... I know it's great and all to have such precise timing, but can anything make use of such precise timing? Is it one of those, "Did it because we can" tricks?
I heard somewhere that the phone company still generates revenue from people calling to get the time of that clock. It's crazy that people still do that.
Yeah, good question. As it turns out, theres a practical application in particle physics. Clocks of this precision help the timing electronics in high energy accelerators. Synchronization is vital to achieving terminal energies and accurate trajectories. Astrophysicists may also use this to improve the ability to detect natural "constants" which change over time. Yes a bit confusing but were talking long periods of time.
It's basically in fundamental physics where this will have a large impact.
I don't see a use for this on Main Street anytime soon though.
Damnit, if using one's pulse was good enough for Galileo...
As I read about proposed particle experiments, I think about that and wonder:
Is it all necessary? For tomorrow, I'd say yes. Definitely not for today.
Well, at least there's a use. Though usually, even if there isn't a use at creation, one gets found along the way.
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