Physicists are quietly rewriting one of the most basic units in science, using a new generation of optical clocks that can keep time so precisely they barely lose a beat over the age of the universe.

Researchers from six countries conducted the largest coordinated comparison of optical clocks to date. The measurements amount to the largest coordinated comparison of optical clocks to date, and ...

EUROPE — Every clock in your house probably tells a slightly different time. Now picture those clocks as the most precise instruments humanity has ever built, so accurate that they wouldn’t lose or ...

The way time is measured is on the edge of a historic upgrade. At the heart of this change is a new kind of atomic clock that uses light instead of microwaves. This shift means timekeeping could ...

WASHINGTON — In a new study, researchers carried out the most extensive coordinated comparison of optical clocks to date by operating clocks and the links connecting them simultaneously across six ...

Atomic clocks record time using microwaves at a frequency matched to electron transitions in certain atoms. They are the basis upon which a second is defined. But there is a new kid on the block, the ...

The field of optical atomic clocks, in combination with ultracold atoms, has transformed precision timekeeping and metrology. By utilising laser-cooled atoms confined in optical lattices, researchers ...

Atomic clocks have long been the gold standard for measuring time and frequency. Among them, optical clocks—using atoms like strontium or aluminum—have reached staggering levels of accuracy, with ...