World’s Most Accurate Clock Ever Built—19 Decimal Places of Precision!

Scientists at NIST have finally built the most accurate clock ever — an optical atomic clock based on a trapped aluminum ion, accurate to 19 decimal places and 41% more precise than the previous world record.

🔍 **In this video, you’ll discover:**

1. What makes this clock special: it uses quantum logic spectroscopy, where an aluminum ion is paired with a magnesium ion to control its state and measure time down to the 19th decimal place (theguardian.com, sciencealert.com, nist.gov¹.

2. Engineering triumph: the team redesigned the ion trap using a diamond wafer and gold-coated electrodes, and improved the vacuum chamber to minimize disturbances from hydrogen diffusion (nist.gov, sciencealert.com¹.

3. Faster precision: compared to earlier models that required weeks to measure a second accurately, this new system takes just 1.5 days, thanks to stable lasers connected over 3.6 km (nist.gov, sciencealert.com¹.

4. Why this matters: It strengthens the push to redefine the second, enables dark matter detection, advances quantum computing, and boosts GPS/navigation precision and relativistic experiments (nist.gov, sciencealert.com¹.

⏱️ This breakthrough isn’t just about precision time—it’s about unlocking new frontiers in physics and technology.

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