What Do You Know About An Atomic Digital Wall Clock?

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What is an atomic digital wall clock? How does it work? How accurate would it be? These are questions most of us have had – let’s take a look at the answers.

What is an atomic digital wall clock?

An atomic clock is one that uses an atomic resonance frequency standard for its timekeeping element. This is the most accurate type of clock there is. Because this clock is so accurate, it is the primary standard for international time distribution services, and it controls GPS satellite signals and the frequency of tv broadcasts.

The atomic digital clocks, like a wall clock, is automatically synchronized to the signal sent out by the U.S. Atomic Clock in Colorado.

What About Their Accuracy?

An atomic digital wall clock maintains such great accuracy that they never need adjusting. It adjusts each day back to the split second, and automatically adjusts for daylight savings time, leap year, and changes in time zones. How great of accuracy is that? How about only losing one second every 80 million years!

And Their History?

Atomic clocks were first built in 1949. But it wasn’t truly accurate – that didn’t come until later, when Louis Essen of the UK made his model in 1955. When that was developed, it was agreed that the second would be based on the atomic clock, rather than the rotation of the Earth around the Sun as it was measured previously.

There have been many versions of digital atomic clocks, both wall and smaller. Some have used hydrogen, caesium, or rubidium. The caesium type is the most revered. The caesium oscillator has become the primary standard for time and frequency measurements throughout the world. Rubidium standard clocks are inexpensive and small, but are only stable for a shorter time period. They are useful in many applications, such as aerospace, portable, and commercial types. Hydrogen type are much more stable for short term applications, but they are less accurate over the long time period.

And The Future?
In August 0f 2004, scientists showed they had made a computer chip sized atomic clock. It was one-hundredth the size of any previously made. It could be used in tiny places, like wristwatches, but would also be good in larger spaces, like a digital alarm clock radio or even a digital atomic wall clock. This new type of atomic clock is more accurate than ever before, utilizing strontium atoms trapped in a laser grid. Its inaccuracy is less than one second in 200 million years. That just might be accurate enough for any of us.

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