Atomic Clocks - History and Development

Atomic clocks have with us for over fifty years and most people have heard about it and know that they are very accurate, but what exactly are they and why do we need so accurate clocks?

Atomic clocks are used by many of us, even if we are not aware of it. The time to say it passed around the world and lifted by the time servers using the NTP protocol to synchronize the networks, they are for many technologies, such as global satellite system, vital, and TV signalTiming.

Before the development of the atomic clock accurate timekeeping devices of electronic watches, which were to lose one or two seconds per week. They were largely replaced mechanical watches that were less accurate still.

Mankind has always had a fascination for knowing the persecution of the time, however, just at the time has never been too important. A second or even one minutes difference does not affect our day to day lives.

However, such advanced technologythe need for a more precise measurement of time has increased. Satellites that are to navigate and communicate with the earth of a hundred, a thousand or even millions of miles away requires precise timing. Light and radio waves can travel so 300,000 km / second, so that there will be slight variations in the time differences are massive.

The first accurate atomic clock was built y the British National Physical Laboratory in 1955 by Dr Louis Essen, based on his clock to theVibration of the cesium atomic -133. The idea was actually first conceived as far back as 1879, when Lord Kelvin, that temporary leadership on how atoms behave would be a better way, at intervals than anything proposed in the crowd.

The first generation of atomic clocks (also known as Cesium oscillators) used the frequency of this atom, which vibrates 9,192,631,770 times per second. Essen's model was meant exactly for a second every 300 years, but the development of the cesium oscillatorthey can now achieve an accuracy of one second every 80 million years ago.

But given the technology is more advanced, scientists strive to better and more accurate clocks. Rubidium standard clocks do not provide better accuracy than cesium models are smaller and cost less (cesium oscillators) are usually found only in large physics laboratories.

Watches with only a single atom have been developed to offer even more accuracy. A clock on the basis of a single atom of mercuryhas achieved accuracies of one second in 400 million years ago and it is expected that a new type of strontium clock uses light to go even better.

The future of atomic clocks is always greater accuracy, combined with a reduction in the size and cost of them. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have unveiled a chip size atomic clock provides the millisecond.

Atomic clocks are now an integral part of our life, without the timeSignals that they would be in the world, which are picked up by modern communications NTP server from the Internet shopping and GPS and technological advances such as satellite navigation becomes impossible to be transferred.

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