Could We Be On The Verge Of Making The Ultimate Accurate Clock?
For nearly 50 years, physicists have dreamed of the secrets they could unlock by raising the energy state of an atom’s nucleus using a laser
The achievement would allow today’s atomic clocks to be replaced with a nuclear clock that would be the most accurate clock to ever exist, allowing advances like deep space navigation and communication.
It would also allow scientists to measure precisely whether the fundamental constants of nature are, in fact, really constant or merely appear to be because we have not yet measured them precisely enough.
Now, an effort led by Eric Hudson, professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, has accomplished the seemingly impossible.
By embedding a thorium atom within a highly transparent crystal and bombarding it with lasers, Hudson’s group has succeeded in getting the nucleus of the thorium atom to absorb and emit photons like electrons in an atom do.
The astonishing feat is described in a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
This means that measurements of time, gravity and other fields that are currently performed using atomic electrons can be made with orders of magnitude higher accuracy. The reason is that atomic electrons are influenced by many factors in their environment, which affects how they absorb and emit photons and limits their accuracy.
Neutrons and protons, on the other hand, are bound and highly concentrated within the nucleus and experience less environmental disturbance.
Using the new technology, scientists may be able to determine if fundamental constants, such as the fine-structure constant which sets the strength of the force that holds atoms together, vary.
Hints from astronomy suggest that the fine-structure constant might not be the same everywhere in the universe or at all points in time. Precise measurement using the nuclear clock of the fine-structure constant could completely rewrite some of these most basic laws of nature.
“Nuclear forces are so strong it means the energy in the nucleus is a million times stronger than what you see in the electrons, which means that if the fundamental constants of nature deviate, the resulting changes in the nucleus are much bigger and more noticeable, making measurements orders of magnitude more sensitive,” Hudson said.
“Using a nuclear clock for these measurements will provide the most sensitive test of ‘constant variation’ to date and it is likely no experiment for the next 100 years will rival it.”
Hudson’s group was the first to propose a series of experiments to stimulate thorium-229 nuclei doped into crystals with a laser, and has spent the past 15 years working to achieve the newly published results.
Getting neutrons in the atomic nucleus to react to laser light is challenging because they are surrounded by electrons, which react readily to light and can reduce the number of photons actually able to reach the nucleus.
A particle that has raised its energy level, such as through absorption of a photon, is said to be in an “excited” state.
The UCLA team embedded thorium-229 atoms within a transparent crystal rich in fluorine. Fluorine can form especially strong bonds with other atoms, suspending the atoms and exposing the nucleus like a fly in a spider web.
The electrons were so tightly bound with the fluorine that the amount of energy it would take to excite them was very high, allowing lower energy light to reach the nucleus. The thorium nuclei could then absorb these photons and re-emit them, allowing the excitation of the nuclei to be detected and measured.
By changing the energy of the photons and monitoring the rate at which the nuclei are excited, the team was able to measure the energy of the nuclear excited state.
“We have never been able to drive nuclear transitions like this with a laser before,” Hudson said. “If you hold the thorium in place with a transparent crystal, you can talk to it with light.”
Hudson said the new technology could find uses wherever extreme precision in timekeeping is required in sensing, communications and navigation. Existing atomic clocks based on electrons are room-sized contraptions with vacuum chambers to trap atoms and equipment associated with cooling.
A thorium-based nuclear clock would be much smaller, more robust, more portable and more accurate.
“Nobody gets excited about clocks because we don’t like the idea of time being limited,” he said. “But we use atomic clocks all the time every day, for example, in the technologies that make our cell phones and GPS work.”
Above and beyond commercial applications, the new nuclear spectroscopy could pull back the curtains on some of the universe’s biggest mysteries. Sensitive measurement of an atom’s nucleus opens up a new way to learn about its properties and interactions with energy and the environment.
This, in turn, will let scientists test some of their most fundamental ideas about matter, energy and the laws of space and time.
“Humans, like most life on Earth, exist at scales either far too small or far too large to observe what might really be going on in the universe,” Hudson said. “What we can observe from our limited perspective is a conglomeration of effects at different scales of size, time and energy and the constants of nature we’ve formulated seem to hold at this level.
“But if we could observe more precisely, these constants might actually vary. Our work has taken a big step toward these measurements and, either way, I am sure we will be surprised at what we learn.”
“For many decades, increasingly precise measurements of fundamental constants have allowed us to better understand the universe at all scales and subsequently develop new technologies that grow our economy and strengthen our national security,” said Denise Caldwell, acting assistant director of NSF’s Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate.
“This nucleus-based technique could one day allow scientists to measure some fundamental constants so precisely that we might have to stop calling them ‘constant.'”
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Herb Rose
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Since time comes from energy (v^2) and energy flows to achieve equilibrium, time will never have a constant rate.
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aaron
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time was invented by man to keep everything from happening at once
no way it will ever be accurate, who will be the decider on accuracy?
maybe the fake ai can tell us the truth?
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Howdy
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Explain the stars and planets then, Aaron, they were here doing their ’rounds’ before Humans came on the scene.
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Howdy
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OK then:
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Howdy
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May as well include this:
“The slanted lines are measured at 23.5 degrees. The words ‘a novel’ and ‘author of’ are tilted 23.5 degrees. This same angle is also found in ‘A’ and ‘V’ of ‘DA VINCI CODE’”
23.5 degrees and images of Christ etc
http://keyofsolomon.org/The Lost Symbol Dan Brown.php
Octaves below God.
Notice it is A=432, and not the solfeggio 3, 6, 9, and frequencies claimed by many to be frequencies of God, including Tesla, apparently.
https://time-price-research-astrofin.blogspot.com/2013/06/27-54-108-216-432-864.html
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Howdy
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Proper link for above that is incomplete
http://keyofsolomon.org/The%20Lost%20Symbol%20Dan%20Brown.php
Tony
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http://www.paulstramer.net/2024/06/international-public-notice-for-your.html
Time does not actually exist. It is an illusion that persists based on natural cycles and changes that do exist, but mathematically and factually, time does not exist. We live in one eternal moment called “now” — the ever-present present moment.
That said, there have been numerous systems based on everything from the vibrations of an atom (atomic clock now in use) to the lunar calendar created from the moon’s cycles, to the solar calendar created from the sun’s cycles relative to the constellations.
Among calendars that are designed to track cyclic natural phenomena there are proponents on all sides, those who promote the 13 month 28 day lunar calendar that the Hebrews and people of Meso and South America used and which are still in use today, versus those who promote the 12 month, variable day calendar imposed by the Romans and the Roman Catholic Church.
The lunar calendar far predates the solar calendar and has been used throughout most of the world since very ancient times. The Hebrew lunar calendar year is 5784 this year— an unbroken run of going on 6,000 years.
This very ancient lunar calendar, still observed by Judaism worldwide, begins with the fall celebration Feast of Rosh Hashanah which falls on a slightly different day each year. Last year, 2023 on the Roman Calendar, the Hebrew New Year 5784 began on September 15th.
https://www.jewishvoice.org/read/blog/5784-new-jewish-year
The Roman Calendar Year, which is based on solar cycles, begins every year on January first, and follows a rigid 12 month pattern, albeit, with slight variation in the days accorded to each month.
This Roman solar calendar is actually based on a much older Summarian solar calendar and on mathematics which is itself based on circular geometry, with the sky divided into 360 degrees and each season taking up 90 degrees of the circle.
The purpose of time, apart from tracking the regular cyclic phenomenon of the season, was to make time a measurable commodity — which was in turn bought and sold. We see this practice in hourly wage schedules today, where a man’s labor and skill level are accorded a specific value.
This is the most infamous use of the concept of time and the measurement of this imaginary commodity — as it appears to reduce the value of life and the value of a man or woman, to a term of hours spent performing labor for hire, or sitting useless in a jail “doing time”.
This mechanistic and arbitrary concept of “time” and its measurement and monetization has also been the basis of other mental missteps and false ideas.
We truly don’t know what day it is or what time it is, as time itself does not exist, yet we persist in attaching great importance to time.
Contracts, we are told, are not valid unless they include the date they are issued, and may not be valid without reference to other days and dates; the pieces of paper issued by banks and known as “negotiable instruments” are not valid without both a date of issuance and a date of maturation.
Everywhere we look, time is invoked as an authority of one kind or another— schedules of trains and air transport, the apportionment of work schedules and factory production, the beginning of each school session, and the value of University degrees — all subject to time.
Even the duration of a man’s working life is artificially bound by time, so that we speak of “retirement age”, even though we observe that many people retire before that age or continue working long after it.
Our reason for bringing this discussion of time and the measurement of this non-existent commodity forward, is that its introduction into our psyches has then meant its inclusion in every facet of our lives as a means of organization and validation, when in fact it enforces a fictional matrix on the actual world, an element of falsehood into every contract, and places a false value on every man’s time on Earth.
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Howdy
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My mind is nowhere else as I type this comment – this is what’s known as ‘living in the now’. It is meaningless.
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aaron
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There is only now
the past is a memory and the future does not yet exist
all there is is now
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Howdy
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Too simplistic Aaron.
The ‘now’ is infinitesimally small portion of time, so as far as humans are concerned with their slow responses, it is of no consequence. People therefore permanently live in the past because the present escapes them before they can recognise it. As soon as they try, it’s allready gone.
If I let my mind wander, I am no longer considered in ‘the now’, though I am not necessarily in the past, nor thinking of the future. This is why it’s new age nonsense. It bears no correlation to actual life.
If I cut my hand, it does not heal in an instant of now and become memory as the now should make so, but takes time. This means the past is not just memory, it is tangible, and the after-effect of the injury continues in the now, until healed.
If I have a premonition that shows me the future, I view the future in the now, before it comes to pass. The now is also the past, and the future.
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Herb Rose
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A clock does not measure time. It measures the flow of energy from the clock. When the energy declines or runs out the clock slows or stops not time.
They were developed as a common reference that everyone could reference. They were needed to provided a reference for determining the longitude of ships on the ocean. The latitude could be determined by the position of stars but there was no reference point to determine how far east or west the ship had traveled. By have a clock set to the position of the sun at a set location the current position of the sun could be compared to that position determining how far west or east the current position was.
Believing that a clock is measuring time is foolish.
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Herb Rose
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What the atomic clocks on satellites show is that the assumption of the constant rate of radioactive decay by elements is false. The flow of energy (including energy from a nucleus) is affected by the strength of the energy field the object is in.
As altitude increases in the energy field emitted by the Earth the strength of the energy field decreases resulting in the rate of radioactive decay to increase and causing the clocks to go faster. When the satellite enters the energy field coming from the sun an increase in altitude produces an increase in strength of the surrounding energy field, causing the rate of decay to slow.
The accuracy of clocks depends on their environment.
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