NIST launches an atomic clock 3 times more accurate than the last

Monday 21 April 2014

NIST launches an atomic clock 3 times more accurate than the last

Science Focus

NIST Launches a New US Time Standard: NIST-F2 Atomic Clock

Earlier this week, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) officially launched an atomic clock that is three times as accurate as the one used today to do everything from synchronize GPS systems to time-stamp financial transactions.

The previous atomic clock, called NIST-F1, was launched in 1999. It was accurate to within plus or minus one second over the course of 100 million years. The newly launched atomic clock, called NIST-F2, is accurate to within plus or minus one second over 300 million years.

Both clocks are based on a Cesium atom fountain. Physicists measure the frequency of a transition that the Cesium atoms make, which divides a second into 9,192,631,770 vibrations per second. NIST explains how the F2 standard is so much more accurate than the older standard:

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