Obligatory Terry Pratchet reference
Someone is building a glass clock again...
Got a big day planned in 15 billion years? You need this clock
The world's most accurate clock has been invented, and is ideal for anyone who doesn't want to be a second late over billions and billions of years. Boffins have improved the accuracy of the best optical atomic clock by a factor of three, so that it will not lose a second in 15 billion years – which is greater than the age of …
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Thursday 23rd April 2015 07:51 GMT Charles 9
Re: Obligatory Terry Pratchet reference
Maybe it's a case of "Too Soon". I only found out about Sir Pratchett's passing a week back, as I was out of touch for a while. As for the clock, I suppose it will be extremely difficult to know if it really can keep accurate time if it's THAT sensitive to movement, given that everything in the universe moves.
And just for the record, that precision limit is still about 25 orders of magnitude away from Planck time, so maybe it isn't right to compare this to the Glass Clock.
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Thursday 23rd April 2015 09:19 GMT Jedit
"OK who's the sad little fucker down voting a harmless Terry Pratchett meme? "
It wasn't me, but it could be a reaction to overuse. In Pratchett fandom there's a long standing tradition at meets of making people kick 20p into the beer fund if they quote Monty Python for just this reason. And it's justified; I remember a long signing queue where of course the rule wasn't applied, and by the time we got to the front there had been an almost complete recitation of Life of Brian.
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Thursday 23rd April 2015 14:08 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Sensitivity
"But the discussion of which one is "right" is probably more philosophical than scientific "
Yes, especially considering that the earth, solar system, galaxy, local galactic group etc all have motion too. If the universe is expanding from an original point then there ought to be a centre, a point of absolute rest from which all other motion is relative. Or is there some astronomical or quantum thingy which says that is rubbish?
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Wednesday 22nd April 2015 20:35 GMT Mark 85
Twilight Zone....
I think we've arrived. Pick one but you have hear it in your head with Rod Serling's voice....
You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Twilight Zone!
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into... the Twilight Zone.
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call "The Twilight Zone".
from: http://grail.cba.csuohio.edu/~somos/twizone.html
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Thursday 23rd April 2015 00:43 GMT Martin Budden
As good as the new strontium clock is, I'm even more impressed by this one:
Clockmaker John Harrison vindicated 250 years after ‘absurd’ claims
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Thursday 23rd April 2015 11:36 GMT Anonymous Coward
You're right. This achievement is an impressive iterative advance whereas Harrison's was an astonishing out of the blue piece of genius.
What's really scary with Harrison is that even though he'd already advanced science and industry by solving one intractable problem his claim to be able to solve another was still ridiculed because he wasn't part of the establishment.
It's lucky we've learnt our lesson and no longer only elect people from Eton and Oxbridge.
Oh...
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
