This measurement comes at a time when many countries are investigating the feasibility of a four-day working week. “Using antimatter, time will fly by more slowly.” Good timing. “We hope that this new measurement will make all our lives easier,” Qui continues. This would be rounded up to 25 hours during the week and rounded down during the weekend. This means the day would last 24 hours, 56 minutes and 24 seconds. By taking the average of matter and antimatter, BETA scientists calculated the second to 8 846 157 280 oscillations: around 96% of the current definition. An atomic clock will lose only one second in 138 million years.īETA’s new measurement on anticaesium found its excitation frequency to be smaller than that of caesium: 8 499 682 790 oscillations of the oscillator were needed to excite its atoms. If the oscillator is incorrect, the non-excited atoms cause an electric signal to jolt the oscillator, creating a feedback loop to keep the clock running. The caesium atomic clock works by an oscillator sending a wave with a frequency of exactly 9 192 631 770 Hz (using the old second definition), which is the frequency needed to excite the caesium atoms. These are much more precise, because atoms from the same element will always have the same properties. In 1967, the first atomic clock was invented. However, the resonant frequency of quartz, which sends the electric signals to drive the clock, can change due to environmental factors. In 1932, the quartz clock was invented, which was much more accurate. The first clocks contained pendulums, which were also unreliable due to their damping. Before the first clocks, humans relied on the geographical position of Earth’s rotation around its axis to determine time. More accurate methods to measure time have always been ticking along. “This way, several uncertainties cancel out, making the measurement much more precise.” A brief history of timekeeping “It is about time we updated the definition of a second using antimatter,” says Dr Qui, spokesperson of the BETA experiment. By taking the average, scientists say that timekeeping can now be more accurate than ever before. In conjunction with this clock, BETA also used anticaesium atoms produced by the Antimatter Factory to compare the two definitions of the second given by matter and antimatter. The experiment used the caesium fountain clock – one of the most precise clocks in the world, used to define SI units and help set coordinated universal time (UTC) – to precisely measure the second using caesium. Now, this may become a reality, thanks to new measurements on the second from the BETA experiment at CERN’s Antimatter Factory. We have all wished for one extra hour in the day. The experiment is using it to take precise measurements of the spectra of antihydrogen. Were you fooled by our joke? The caesium fountain clock is being hosted by the ALPHA experiment at CERN’s Antimatter Factory, but not to redefine the second.
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