Where is the official atomic clock?
Where is the official atomic clock?
Boulder, Colorado
If you’ve ever wondered what clock sets the official time of the United States, look no further. The bearer of that important standard is the NIST-F1 Cesium Fountain Atomic Clock, located at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado.
How accurate is the NIST atomic clock?
One of these clocks, the strontium atomic clock, is accurate to within 1/15,000,000,000 of a second per year. This is so accurate that it would not have gained or lost a second if the clock had started running at the dawn of the universe.
How much does an atomic clock cost?
Conventional vapor cell atomic clocks are about the size of a deck of cards, consume about 10 W of electrical power and cost about $3,000.
Who operates the atomic clock?
the National Institute of Standards and Technology
The NIST-F2 caesium fountain clock operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was officially launched in April 2014, to serve as a new U.S. civilian frequency and time standard, along with the NIST-F1 standard. The planned uB performance level of NIST-F2 is 1 × 10−16.
Who keeps official time?
While many nations operate an official time service, NIST has the highest-capacity timekeeping network. It’s also the most popular. Jeff Sherman, a NIST physicist, recently tracked requests to two NIST timeservers for one month.
What are the best atomic clocks?
The three most commonly used types of atomic clock are the cesium atomic beam, the hydrogen maser, and the rubidium gas cell. The cesium clock has high accuracy and good long-term stability. The hydrogen maser has the best stability for periods of up to a few hours.
How do atomic clocks keep the most accurate time?
How does an atomic clock work? Atoms are heated and joined together to form a beam. Only a single state of an atom is passed through a resonator. Resonator changes some of the atoms to another state. A detector counts how many atoms changed their state. This helps to tune the microwave frequency to the oscillation of atoms. When it is properly tuned then the time is measured.
How does an atomic clock keep track of time?
Much like a pendulum clock, an atomic clock keeps time by oscillations. In the case of an atomic clock, it’s the natural oscillations of atoms rather than weight that keep it in good time. This makes them entirely more precise than the regulator clocks that were invented in the late 18th century.
What is the best atomic wall clock?
Best Atomic Wall Clock: One of the most popular atomic wall clocks is the La Crosse Technology WS-8418U-IT Atomic Digital Wall Clock. It has very similar features to both atomic travel and alarm clocks. It has a moon phase, remote thermometer, atomic time and date, automatic adjustment for Daylight Savings Time ,…
