Get Ready For Nuclear Clocks (arxiv.org) 50
Long-time Slashdot reader jrronimo says JILA physicist Jun Ye's group "has made a breakthrough towards the next stage of precision timekeeping."
From their paper recently published to arXiv: Optical atomic clocks use electronic energy levels to precisely keep track of time. A clock based on nuclear energy levels promises a next-generation platform for precision metrology and fundamental physics studies.... These results mark the start of nuclear-based solid-state optical clocks and demonstrate the first comparison of nuclear and atomic clocks for fundamental physics studies. This work represents a confluence of precision metrology, ultrafast strong field physics, nuclear physics, and fundamental physics.
From their paper recently published to arXiv: Optical atomic clocks use electronic energy levels to precisely keep track of time. A clock based on nuclear energy levels promises a next-generation platform for precision metrology and fundamental physics studies.... These results mark the start of nuclear-based solid-state optical clocks and demonstrate the first comparison of nuclear and atomic clocks for fundamental physics studies. This work represents a confluence of precision metrology, ultrafast strong field physics, nuclear physics, and fundamental physics.
Oh well (Score:3)
After seeing the headline, I first thought they'd found a way to make a compact non-networked ultra-accurate clock I could keep on my nightstand. Imagine waking up at the exact time you want, right to the femtosecond!
But no, they're just talking about a possible replacement for the current atomic clocks.
Nuclear (Score:3)
I've always wanted a nuclear clock, and was disappointed that they are in such high demand that even old HP clock standards fetch thousands of dollars used.
Anyways, an oven compensated quartz oscillator can be had for a few bucks, and I'd imagine building a clock around one would only cost a few dozen dollars more. One of these would be accurate to within a few milliseconds a year. Sync it to WWV once and you're gold.
Re: (Score:2)
A cheap quartz watch will work, if you replace the crystal with a low PPM rating. Even then though, there is drive, and temperature fluctuations. Temperature compensated is viable, but not pin compatible. Even if low PPM and temperature compensated, there's still enough drift that you want to periodically synch with a good standard, subtracting out latency delays, or synch with an attached GPS unit, after a few such synchs you will have a good estimate of drift. Of course, that doesn't give you the prec
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Once, just for giggles, I hooked up a Garmin GPS to my FreeBSD (this was a long time ago) box and used it as a time reference. There was terminology in the various options that I couldn't find any references for, so I asked a question on one of the GPS forums. Keeping in mind, that I was synched to the GPS to small fractions of a millisecond. Or, a handful of nanoseconds. I received a barrage of hate and ridicule for being '13 nanoseconds off'. You idiot, you can't do international financial trading wi
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
So Precise You Can Measure Gravity (Score:5, Interesting)
Pluis, if they have make these clocks small enough then demonstrating things like time dilation due to e.g. walking should be possible and a whole new set of really cool relativity demos will be possible!
Re: (Score:2)
What the chemical ones have is size and reasonable cost. The nuclear clock paper doesn't say what size they're expected to be, or their cost, though it does mention needing access to a number of lasers. That probably isn't cheap if they can currently be miniaturized to begin with.
Re: (Score:2)
These things are just another example of numerous physics dicksize competitions
This really is not the case here. The huge precision increase in these clocks allow us to start using them in ways never before thought possible. This is not just a case of adding a few more significant figures to some measurement of time that you probably do not care about. We have never before had clocks that can measure time so accurately that the time dilation from gravity and human movement is easily detectable. This opens up a huge range of potential new uses for clocks that, if you have never taken
Re:Oh well (Score:5, Funny)
No need. If you're a femtosecond late for getting up, the cat will sit on your face.
Re: (Score:2)
After seeing the headline, I first thought they'd found a way to make a compact non-networked ultra-accurate clock I could keep on my nightstand.
I was just hoping for one where I'd never have to replace that damned 9V battery.
Re: (Score:2)
After seeing the headline, I first thought they'd found a way to make a compact non-networked ultra-accurate clock I could keep on my nightstand.
I was just hoping for one where I'd never have to replace that damned 9V battery.
You need one of those microverse batteries [fandom.com]. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine waking up at the exact time you want, right to the femtosecond!
You can buy chip-scale atomic clocks: https://www.sparkfun.com/produ... [sparkfun.com] You can even buy NTP server appliances with atomic clocks for about $3000.
But they are incredibly niche, and thus expensive as hell.
Re: (Score:2)
Here you go:
https://www.microsemi.com/prod... [microsemi.com]
Re: Oh well (Score:2)
Beauty in precision time-keeping. (Score:2)
Except for weapons applications, but that goes without saying I guess.
Re: (Score:1)
There's plenty about weapons that are wholesome and beautiful, though maybe not sweet exactly. I like knowing that by living in the USA I'm protected from those willing to do harm to me and those I care for by the best weapons, best weapon manufacturers, and the those most proficient in the use of weapons. Weapons are no better or worse than those that wield them.
While I see weapon applications for an accurate clock I first thought about use of such clocks for navigation. But then I thought of this becau
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Amusingly enough, you're at more danger from weapons on a daily basis that virtually anywhere else on the planet that isn't an active war zone.
The only thing "amusing" about that is the caveat you had to add about not being in a war zone. Have you considered that America hasn't had any war zones inside its borders for a long time because there's so many Americans with precision weapons? If the rest of the world finds it "amusing" that USA has so many weapons then we can take back all the weapons we've handed out to our allies and let you live without American precision weapons to protect you from becoming an active war zone.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
1885? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I blame those blood-thirsty French bloodlines...
Re:Beauty in precision time-keeping. (Score:4, Insightful)
You seem to be seriously suggesting that the reason the US doesn't have wars on its own soil is because invading armies are afraid of the citizens with guns, rather than say the nuclear weapons or most well funded military in the world. Or geography.
Back when the US was a warzone the population was armed and those armies came anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to be seriously suggesting that the reason the US doesn't have wars on its own soil is because invading armies are afraid of the citizens with guns, rather than say the nuclear weapons or most well funded military in the world. Or geography.
Is Haiti a war zone right now? I would suspect people believe that description fits. Was Haiti invaded by some foreign nation? No, and this is in large part because of Haiti's geography, a kind of geographic isolation that America shares and yet the place is a war zone. America has peace in its borders in part because people are able to defend themselves from anyone that tries to take over by force. This peace is also in part because of having a large military. Geography is a huge factor too, but that
Re: Beauty in precision time-keeping. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.usnews.com/news/be... [usnews.com]
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
There's plenty about weapons that are wholesome and beautiful, though maybe not sweet exactly.
The Devil, in Don Juan in Hell, a play within the play Man and Superman written in 1902 by George Bernard Shaw (edited):
Have you walked up and down upon the earth lately? I have; and I have examined Man’s wonderful inventions. And I tell you that in the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine...
When he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel of mechanism that lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecular energies, and leaves the javelin, the arrow, the blowpipe of his fathers far behind. In the arts of peace Man is a bungler.
I have seen his cotton factories and the like, with machinery that a greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food. I know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles: they are toys compared to the Maxim gun, the submarine torpedo boat.
There is nothing in Man’s industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons.
So (Score:2)
What's this "ready" and who can give it to me?
And why should I care? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
a few meters error can put your car in a river or lake; it's not good enough
Re: (Score:1)
there was article here about GPS brand directing people near enough to "road" that was boat loading point at night that cars got partially in the water.
Your arrogance in assuming you couldn't be lead into dangerous situation perhaps in bad weather or other non-ideal condition is laughable.
Re: (Score:2)
What do you mean turn in your keys? Does a self driving guided electronic system depending on accurate mapping data have keys?
Your post is just as dumb as the OP. It assumes everything technologically remains the way it currently remains. GPS is already not sufficient for many applications which is why we have differential GPS. The world is bigger and more important than you driving a car.
Re: (Score:1)
The world is bigger and more important than you driving a car.
Except, you illiterate fuck, I was responding to a person talking about a FUCKING CAR.
a few meters error can put your car in a river or lake; it's not good enough
And if you're stupid enough to have a self-driving car that relies solely on GPS to keep you out of a lake, then you're a bigger idiot than the OP.
Re: (Score:2)
I just don't trust that statistical AI not to choose to believe GPS over its video feed at random.
Re: (Score:2)
I actually disagree - if the GPS is too accurate, systems will be built to trust the map too much. I'd prefer a system that is able to adapt to the unexpected. GPS to within 10m is more than enough for navigation purposes. In fact, I find it preferable because it forces designers to add error bars to their calculations.
Re: (Score:2)
The GPS isn't going to tell you that there's a tire-destroying pothole coming up on the left, a deer carcass on the road, a tweaker yelling at imaginary shit ahead, or a construction zone requiring diversion.
Re: (Score:2)
640K RAM ought to be enough for anybody, right?
Once upon a time, nobody imagined GPS being possible at all, and couldn't envision a need for the Cesium clocks it leverages. Who knows what application will come from this new technology! I certainly don't.
Re: (Score:3)
You can get under 10cm with consumer differential gear now.
Re: (Score:2)
You can pay a license fee to Terrastar and get accuracy to a few cm. https://novatel.com/products/g... [novatel.com]
Except in Germany (Score:2)
Due to popular objection, prepare for coal clocks.
Re: (Score:2)
Due to popular objection, prepare for coal clocks.
Then will come those advocating for sun clocks, wind clocks, and water clocks for the lower CO2 footprint. But I'm not sure "wind clocks" mean what I think, I've never heard it pronounced out loud.
Why stop there? (Score:2)
First there was atomic.
Then nuclear!
What's next?
Quantum clocks!
Re: (Score:2)
Same. With that kind of power source, I was worried they'd be crowing like crazy at all hours of the day.
Ultraviolet Gamma Ray (Score:2)
One point missed in the summary, and other comments here, that is interesting is that it is making use of the lowest energy nuclear transition known, one that emits a gamma ray (which is defined by the physical process producing it) with an energy that classifies is as ultraviolet light, allowing detection with conventional optical detectors.
Atomic clocks and atomic clocks (Score:1)
I know a physicist who works in this area, and I asked him about this. I'm just an engineer, so he knows to translate into English. This is what I heard. If any physicists want to weigh in and correct me, please do.
There are different types of "atomic" clocks. The one in my bathroom doesn't measure atomic oscillations, it is just a radio receiver, picking up the transmission from NIST in Colorado . Their time base is maintained by "an ensemble of cesium beam and hydrogen maser atomic clocks" .
I think t