Teams in Europe and China build world's 1st nuclear clocks
Scientists just built the world's first nuclear clocks, and it's a big deal for timekeeping.
Instead of measuring time with electron movements like regular atomic clocks, these new devices use energy shifts inside thorium-229 nuclei.
Announced on June 15, this breakthrough came from teams in both Europe and China, opening up a whole new chapter for super-precise clocks.
Europeans tested stability Chinese checked reproducibility
Both groups used special lasers to activate the thorium nuclei inside crystals, but took different approaches:
the European team made a clock that stayed stable when compared to a leading atomic clock and even checked its reaction to dark matter.
The Chinese team focused on making sure their results were consistent across multiple crystals.
While not yet more precise than current atomic clocks, nuclear clocks could soon help us with everything from better experiments to exploring some of physics' biggest mysteries.