\u00a0<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s most precise clocks currently keep time using electrons. A laser excites electrons between two energy levels, and the atoms\u2019 response tells the laser whether its frequency has drifted, akin to a clock gaining or losing time. The laser adjusts accordingly, probes the atoms again, and the loop repeats, setting a stable rhythm for the clock. The best optical atomic clocks<\/a> are so accurate that they would gain or lose just 1 s in hundreds of billions of years, making their extraordinarily stable frequencies helpful for precision measurements and testing fundamental physics.<\/p>\n Now two independent research teams have built clocks that instead tune themselves to a transition inside the atomic nucleus. The groups, led by researchers at TU Wien and Tsinghua University, shone ultraviolet light on thorium-229 nuclei embedded in calcium fluoride crystals and used the nuclei\u2019s response to continually correct their clock systems\u2019 frequencies. The experiments were reported in separate papers in Nature (2026, DOI: 10.1038\/s41586-026-11122-1<\/a> and 10.1038\/s41586-026-11084-4<\/a>) and are the first operational nuclear clocks, a concept theorized since 2003.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 The world\u2019s most precise clocks currently keep time using electrons. A laser excites electrons between two energy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":931799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[131751,49,319898,48,131176,208644,66,54407,319899],"class_list":["post-931798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-atomic-clock","tag-ca","tag-calcium-flouride","tag-canada","tag-metrology","tag-nuclear-clocks","tag-science","tag-spectroscopy","tag-vacuum-ultraviolet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}