Atomic Clocks facts

While investigating facts about Atomic Clocks Amazon and Atomic Clocks At Walmart, I found out little known, but curios details like:

Three physicists flew around the world twice in 1971 with synced atomic clocks to test out the time dilation theory. Upon meeting up, they found that all 3 of the clocks disagreed with each other.

how atomic clocks work?

Two scientists proved time dilation by each flying around the world carrying a synchronized atomic clock. Upon landing, the clocks were no longer in sync.

What element is used in atomic clocks?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what is used in atomic clocks. Here are 34 of the best facts about Atomic Clocks At Target and Atomic Clocks At Lowes I managed to collect.

what are atomic clocks?

In October 1971, a physicist and an astronomer took 4 cesium-beam atomic clocks aboard commercial airliners. They flew twice around the world and when reunited, the sets of clocks were found to disagree according to the predictions of the relativity theory
In an effort to demonstrate time dilation, a father and his kids drove three atomic clocks up Mt. Rainier. The measured effect was just over 20 nanoseconds, matching Einstein's theory of relativity.
There is an atomic clock in Colorado which is so accurate it will not gain or lose a second over 300 million years.
All 24 GPS satellites are equipped with atomic clocks capable of getting the time stamp to a location to the 100 billionth of a second
The official definition of a second is 9,192,631,770 cycles of the Cesium atoms resonant frequency, and the NIST-F1 cesium atomic clock can produce a frequency so precise that its time error per day is about 0.03 nanoseconds, meaning the clock would lose one second in 100 million years
The fastest known neutron star spins at 716 times a second, and their spin rates are extremely reliable - so accurate they even surpass atomic clocks as natures most precise timepieces.
A clock in a tower at Hiroshima University stopped at 8:15 (the time of the Atomic Bombing) 3 days before the bombing.
A second is defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. An atomic clock can measure this, making them the most accurate clocks in the world.
An amateur scientist accurately measured gravity's effect on time (as predicted by Einstein) by driving atomic clocks up to the top of a mountain in the back of his minivan.
Ytterbium based atomic clocks are so accurate, they'd only lose one second in ~19.7 billion years.

atomic clocks facts — What time do atomic clocks reset?

Why atomic clocks are used in satellites?

You can easily fact check why atomic clocks are used in gps surveys by examining the linked well-known sources.

Some citizen watches include tiny radio receivers that allow the watch to sync to an official atomic clock allowing for ultimate time-accuracy.

Similar to the common clock, atomic clocks use a quartz oscillator to keep time. The atomic part is used to (constantly) adjust its frequency to be more accurate. - source

Atomic clocks, which measure the official length of a second, are currently ahead of UTC by 37 seconds. - source

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scienctists puts us at 3 minutes to midnight on the Doomsday clock. We haven't been this close to annihilation on the clock since 1984.

Atomic clocks can be used to foresee the eruption of volcanos - source

When do atomic clocks update?

The government operates a radio station WWV. It transmits a ticking sound with a vocal announcement at the top of the minute reflecting the time. This is the station atomic clocks synchronize with

How atomic clocks measure time?

There are accurate atomic clocks based on radioactive decay which broadcast signals all over the USA so you never have to worry about your clock being wrong

Because the Earth's rotation is gradually slowing, "leap seconds" occasionally need to be added to the universal time (UTC) to sync it up with atomic clocks. So far, 26 seconds have been added since 1972.

The Doomsday Clock "represents the Bulletin [of the Atomic Scientists] Science and Security Board's assessment of two fundamental questions": Is civilization safer than it was last year? And is civilization safer than it has been since 1947?

A Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves Doomsday Clock 2 minutes closer to midnight because in 2015, unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity.

In 2017 The Doomsday Clock was set to two and a half minutes to midnight, indicating that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists think "The probability of global catastrophe is very high". This is the highest warning they've given since 1953.

When do atomic clocks reset?

The global positioning system would only be accurate to 300km if the timing was off by just a millisecond--with atomic clocks it is accurate to 3ft.

The doomsday clock that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set, that started since 1945, has the clock set at three minutes before midnight 2015, in comparison to 1972's twelve minutes before midnight which was in the middle of the Cold War.

An extra second will be added to all clocks on June 30, 2015 in order to synchronize atomic clocks with the earth's rotation.

Before the launch of a GPS satellite the onboard atomic clock is slowed down to counteract the General Relativistic effect once on orbit. When in their proper orbit station the clock appears to tick at the correct rate as compared to the reference atomic clocks at the GPS ground stations.

The BIPM doesn't use a physical rod that's exactly 1 metre similar to the physical "Kilogram" specimen, instead use concise measurement of light & time defined in 1984 by the CGPM as the distance light travels, in a vacuum, in 1/299,792,458 secs with time measured by a cesium-133 atomic clock.

How atomic clocks made?

The closer the symbolic "Doomsday Clock" is set towards midnight, the closer the world is to global disaster. Since 1947 it has been maintained by scientists at "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists", in turn advised by 18 Nobel Laureates (amongst others). It is now three minutes to midnight.

Atomic clock at JILA, a joint institute of NIST and the University of Colorado Boulder, is so precise it would neither gain nor lose one second in 15 billion years

On 30th June, 2015 at just before midnight in London, the world's atomic clocks will add one extra second, reading a time of 23:59:60 before ticking back to 00:00:00. It's a measure that's required to keep the ultra-precise devices attuned to the Earth's actual rotation.

Leap Second (30 June) one extra second inserted into the world's atomic clocks, reading a time of 23:59:60 before ticking back to 00:00:00. It is indicated by an additional bleep in the time signal at the end of some years.

On 30 June of this year, there will an extra second added to the day so that Earth's rotational spin can catch up to it's atomic clock

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