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Japan Rail is holding their breath, this clock might finally be precise enough to guarantee their train schedules.
They need to get one before someone do. They will have none of those people lodging complaint that the train is slow by 2 nanosecond.
Oscillators that give us access to ridiculous speeds on the way.
To be clear, these are pumped by existing lasers. The nuclei just "light up" in response how close the frequency is to their resonant transition frequency, and are then use to make a feedback loop to keep the laser perfectly tuned. The technology that turns a laser beam into electronic ticks is the frequency comb, and it's new-ish, but commercially available.
It is the first machine that makes direct use of the atomic forces, though, besides being more accurate and potentially solid-state. The high frequency has benefits in some applications, and either in this article or another they discuss how the stability of the frequency measured already rules out certain kinds of dark matter.
Thanks for explaining it and leaving me even more confused.
Agh. Unfortunately I have a tendency to do that.
My point is just that an FUV-frequency oscillator isn't the new thing, but rather an FUV oscillator that's pinned at that exact frequency due to the laws of physics (specifically the strong and weak nuclear forces). There's many applications, but don't expect a 2PHz CPU or something.
One that's particularly direct, if more of a party trick, is a handheld stopwatch that could detect the time dilation from relativity just as you walk around.
If anyone has specific questions, I'll clear it up as much as I can.
this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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