Patriotic Brits can feel slightly more chuffed with themselves today with the news that the caesium fountain atomic clock at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has been revealed to be the most accurate long-term timekeeper in the world. Huzzah!
Snappily known as the NPL-CsF2, the clock is used as the primary frequency standard for the measurement of time in the UK, and contributes to the cool sounding ‘International Atomic Time and Universal Coordinated Time.’
These are the worldwide timescales used for global communications, satellite navigation and time stamping of financial transactions.
A team of boffins from NPL and their partners from Pennsylvania State University, USA, got all techie-jiggy with the clock, checking out its abilities using physical measurements and mathematical models.
The results were published in the scientific journal Metrologia, and showed the Blightly Clock to be #1 on the planet. Break out the muffins and tea!
It’s all about the uncertainty
Noting that the first ever atomic clock was demonstrated at NPL, Krzysztof Szymaniec, the leader of the project at the institute added:
Together with other improvements of the caesium fountain, these models and numerical calculations have improved the accuracy of the UK’s caesium fountain clock, NPL-CsF2, by reducing the uncertainty to 2.3 × 10-16 – the lowest value for any primary national standard so far.
We’ll just nod our heads to that because the only uncertainty we generally face is whether to get a tequila or a sambuca shot at the bar.
[NPL]
