The most accurate atomic clocks in the world today lose 1 second every 100 million years.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, WASHINGTON — It took 15 billion years for the clock occupying Jun Ye’s underground laboratory at the University of Colorado to lose a second of how long the universe has existed. This discovery was handled by Chinese-American scientists together with Hidetoshi Katori from Japan.
They will both share three million US dollars (US) or Rp 42.7 billion as co-winners of the 2022 Breakthrough Prize in Basic Physics for this discovery. Working independently, the two developed a technique of using lasers to trap and cool atoms, then harnessing their vibrations to drive what is known as an “optical lattice clock”, the most precise timepiece ever made.
In comparison, today’s atomic clocks lose a second once every 100 million years. But what is obtained with greater accuracy?
“It’s really an instrument to allow you to investigate the basic structure of space-time in the universe,” Ye told AFP, quoted from Japan Today, Sunday (12/9).
In Ye’s lab, researchers have shown time moves slower when the clock is moved closer to the ground by centimeters, in line with Einstein’s predictions of relativity. Applied to today’s technology, this watch can increase the accuracy of GPS navigation by up to a thousand times or help land an unmanned spacecraft smoothly on Mars.
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