Smaller version Illustration of a conventional atomic fountain clock (left) next to NPL’s miniature atomic fountain clock.

For many years, cesium atomic clocks have been reliably keeping time around the world. But the future belongs to even more accurate clocks: optical atomic clocks. In a few years' time, they could ...

Determining the passage of time in our world of ticking clocks and oscillating pendulums is a simple case of counting the seconds between 'then' and 'now'. Down at the quantum scale of buzzing ...

Atomic clocks will only see a loss of 1 second in accuracy over a period of 10 million years. They are used in multiple ways, including the GPS in your car. Now researchers have found a way to bypass ...

Graphic illustrating the difference in energy between running a quantum clock (left: a single electron hopping between two nanoscale regions) and reading the ticks of the clock (right). The energy ...