Physicists are quietly rewriting one of the most basic units in science, using a new generation of optical clocks that can keep time so precisely they barely lose a beat over the age of the universe.

Atomic clocks have long been the gold standard for measuring time and frequency. Among them, optical clocks—using atoms like strontium or aluminum—have reached staggering levels of accuracy, with ...

QuantX personnel conducting environmental testing on the optical frequency comb, which is a key optical atomic clock technology that will be launched into space for testing. (QuantX Labs) ...

(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 ...

Researchers at the Ye Lab at JILA (the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado Boulder) and University of Delaware recently created a highly precise optical ...

The most accurate clock in space launches within days and will begin building a highly synchronised network out of the best clocks on Earth. But the project, decades in preparation, will only operate ...

Improvements in clocks are setting the stage for a redefinition of the second. This is an Inside Science story. (Inside Science) -- Earlier this year, in a nondescript lab at the National Institute of ...

There are hundreds of atomic clocks in orbit right now, perched on satellites all over Earth. We depend on them for GPS location, Internet timing,... To explore deep space, we'll need better clocks.

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 ...

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