When 4 seconds of drift since the Big Bang isn't accurate enough

[teina]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...cks-crown.html

A similar method is used in atomic clocks, except it is the electrons orbiting the nucleus that make the energy jump. The most accurate atomic clocks drift by an amount equivalent to just 4 seconds since the big bang. In principle, a nuclear clock could smash that. Ambient electric and magnetic fields affect electrons in atomic clocks, causing errors, but they would influence the tightly bound particles in the nucleus much less.

...

Now Corey Campbell at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and colleagues have devised a scheme that uses lasers to carefully control the spatial orientation of the electron orbits in atoms. A thorium clock controlled in this way would drift by just 1 second in 200 billion years, the team claims - that is more than 14 times the age of the universe (arxiv.org/abs/1110.2490).

-T

[Rob Van Der Sloot]

I want a nuclear clock! I'll put it on my Sinterklaas list.

[Skyy High]

Sounds like something Dr. Strangelove would ask for.

[Alaris]

And we need this for? Calculating the speed of things that go about as fast as light?

[MixedVariety]

What a waste of time...*snicker*

[raspberry jam]

What a waste of time...*snicker*

Yeah, but at least you could measure what you're wasting.

[Manwithtwohands]

This is good news.
I was told that I would be 12 seconds late for the end of the universe.
Now I can be right on time!
Unless this is a trick...

[Feannag]

That thorium's useful stuff. I was reading about replacing uranium with it in nuclear reactors, since it's more plentiful, more efficient and less dangerous.

[Lensor]

Indeed thorium is great. If they get the tech working all kinds of countries could have plenty of clean energy without the rest of the world having to worry about them making nuclear bombs left and right. Great for everyone.

And now you can use the stuff for telling time as well? Sweet!