World's most accurate atomic clock will not gain or lose a sec in 15bn yrs

Scientists have unveiled the world's most accurate clock that will not gain or lose a second in 15 billion years, roughly the age of the universe.

In another advance at the far frontiers of timekeeping by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers, the latest modification of a strontium atomic clock has achieved new record levels in precision and stability.

Precision timekeeping has broad potential impacts on advanced communications, positioning technologies (such as GPS) and many other technologies. Besides keeping future technologies on schedule, the clock has potential applications that go well beyond simply marking time.

Examples include a sensitive altimeter based on changes in gravity and experiments that explore quantum correlations between atoms.

The experimental strontium lattice clock at JILA, a joint institute of NIST and the University of Colorado Boulder, was now more than three times as precise as it was in 2014.

The JILA clock was now good enough to measure tiny changes in the passage of time and the force of gravity at slightly different heights. Einstein predicted these effects in his theories of relativity, which mean, among other things, that clocks tick faster at higher elevations. Many scientists have demonstrated this, but with less sensitive techniques.

The study is published in Nature Communications.