Scientists have created the most accurate atomic clock ever made — and it could literally redefine the second.
Researchers recently unveiled the record-breaking device, which uses the vibration of atoms of an element called lutetium to precisely measure each microsecond. It is accurate up to 19 decimal places — a 41% improvement over the previous record holder. The results were published Sept. 23 in the journal Nature.
Atomic clocks have been around since the 1950s. The first atomic clocks were made with the radioactive isotopes of the element cesium, a silvery metal that quickly became the gold standard for timekeeping. The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) revised its definition of the second in 1968 to one based on the radiation emitted from cesium-133. Officially, 9.19 billion vibrations of a cesium-133 atom mark one second. (Prior to this, a second was defined as 1/31,556,925 of the length of the solar year 1900.)
Cesium clocks helped standar...
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