Clock (IMAGE)
Caption
A caesium fountain clock that keeps the United Kingdom's atomic time is now the most accurate long-term timekeeper in the world, according to a new evaluation of the clock that will be published in the October 2011 issue of the international scientific journal Metrologia by a team of physicists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the United Kingdom and Penn State University in the United States. This image shows the clock, NPL-CsF2, which is located at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, U.K. The whole device is approximately 8.2 feet (2.5 m) high. Atoms are tossed up 3.2 feet (1 m), approximately 12 inches (30 cm) above the cavity that is contained inside a vacuum vessel. The large external cylinder screens the atoms inside the clock from the relatively large and unstable external magnetic field.
Credit
National Physical Laboratory, United Kingdom
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