Accurate Time to the second

This ion is enclosed in an "optical lattice" of lasers that allows researchers to calculate the number of jtterbium counts per second in order to precisely determine time so that the watch does not loose or win a second in billions of years. Up until recently, our most accurate timepieces were centesium nuclear watches - instruments containing a "pendulum" of electrons resonated by microwaves.

These watches form the basis of the second - the Standard International (SI) time measurement. After the most accurate ceesium clock in the universe, 1 second is the time that passes during 9,192,631,770 cycling of irradiation generated by the passage between two planes of the cesium 133 nucleus.

It might seem good, but when it comes to setting time itself - the thing that virtually regulates everything we do in our lives - you can never be too precise. The need to re-define the second generation after these instruments rather than after ceesium nuclear watches has become increasingly important as scientists around the globe have perfected their optic clocks.

Above all now - as a crew of nuclear watch specialists from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) - they have constructed one that is no less than 100 x more accurate than the most accurate cesium nuclear watches. "It' s considered certain that a new definition of the SI second in the near term will be predicated on an optic atomic timepiece," says the group.

"They have a much higher stimulation rate (1E14 to 1E15 Hz), which makes them much more robust and accurate than cesium watches. "In the 1980s, Nobel Prize winner Hans G. Dehmelt forecast optic atomic clocks were essentially lasers that trapped individual electrons or many neutrons.

Whereas a number of these watches were made in the past, the watch designed by the PTB was the first to achieve an unprecedented degree of precision. They say yellowbium - a smooth silver chemistry medium - is the ideal kind of ionic for their watch because it can switch between states to create a clear and quantifiable "tick".

"This transition is due to the stimulation of the so-called "F-state", which, due to its extreme long life span (approx. six years), provides an extraordinarily close resonance," says the group. Exactly like the kg, which is currently being redefined, everything is tangible in the International System of Units if you have a more accurate method of measurement.