Atomic Clocks: The clocks that keep the world on time

A continuation of my last video on how quartz clocks function. Atomic clocks are used around the world work together to create the time standard we all live by. The atomic clock uses an ingenious process that relies on the very stable and reliable quantum properties of electrons in specific atoms to keep crazy accurate time. Several diverse things you might not expect, like credit cards, encrypted phone calls, and GPS would not be possible without atomic clocks.

Thank you again so much to Dr. Judah Levine from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for your time and help on this video. I was over the moon after speaking with you.

And a big thanks to Tom Van Baak for letting me use your images.

And thank you to my beta testing group for your input and suggestions. Your help is very much appreciated :)

Music Accreditations:

Created By Ben Mesko

[lauraagazzi]

I am a physicist working with atomic clocks at the German Aerospace Center. This video is outstanding. Easy to understand, but without sacrificing the scientific accuracy. Kudos to you!

[andrewcerul]

Well done, referencing credible sources that can be verified in today's world of YouTube is so very important. My kids and I will be tuning-in more, thank you! Horology is fascinating to me.

[dantecpa]

This is incredible and "easy" to understand, congrats, saludos desde México!

[bangla-sydney]

Thank you so much. You really explained it very well. It was an enlightening experience for me too.
Please make a video on optical atomic clocks.

[masonsayer]

Your videos are great! Subscriber for life

[shorifulislamakib]

This video is outstanding. Easy to understand.😀😀

[makodgaming]

I just found this channel and I love it man! You're the next Vsauce!

[tzaidi]

Interesting! so the cesium or rubidum just serves as a detector mechanism. Great vid. Love ur editing and style.

[remykreuzer]

did anyone else think digital clocks were controlled by one clock in each time zone and that’s how they were always on time or how they changed for daylight savings when they were little? it’s cool to see how atomic clocks are actually controlled!

[black_platypus]

How does sending "a tiny jolt of electricity" to the quartz magically correct its frequency? It seems like that glossing over does a lot of heavy lifting 😅

[parkerbond]

Wait, are you telling me atomic clocks are actually just quartz clocks with constant fine tuning/error correction?

[reubendolby]

but if the seconds are too short or too long then adjusting the frequency to be exactly one second doesnt neceaarily mean your new accurrate lengthed second has started at the correct time.

[SaeedNeamati]

If you stop making videos, you have betrayed so many people like me. You have a gift for explaining stuff. Please never stop making videos. I don't know why you are such underrated, but I assume that if you increase the pace (maybe twice per week) then you'll hit a 100K easily.

[johnnemeth]

This explains how the clock keeps extremely accurate time, but how does it get synchronized in the first place?

[zabolas]

Somehow I get a notion, that it is the speed or abundance of atoms flying through detector what sets frequency not the atoms with higher energy state🤷‍♂️

[berndp]

Challenge: Have three exactly snchronized atomic clocks running at the very same speed in your stationary lab. Send one up to the moon, send the other flying in earth's orbit. They will then run at different speeds. Thats weird but has an explanation which lies buried in how spacetime works in different distances from earth, on the moon and also if these clocks are (all three are!) moving within spacetime. This also is valid for any other type of clock (analog/mechanic/quarz)

[Holocaustica]

I’ve NEVER in my life, heard of anyone who thought atomic clocks are radioactive.
I DID have a grandfather who believed that people were going to die unpleasantly if they were foolish enough to eat food that was cooked in a microwave. This was a long time ago. Back then a microwave cost about $2, 000; his second reason for not wanting one...

[Troeltsch]

Well I read a bunch of books from over close to the science building and now if I was going to try and get out of a job at the bricks factory by telling a bronze age Pharaoh that I have a higher education then I would probably put the spotlight on the way that, given an office for it, I could eventually find out the size of the earth from the length of a pendulum. Apart from the metrics of all of this and how many meters it is you can tell that I would be ahead of all of his other astronomers, no mater what units they have, since, unlike them, I am the one who noticed the formula for the antisine in a handbook. I tested it out and it multiplies right up close to pie to prove it and by now, knowing the schoolbooks, I could also clock the period of a pendulum from the time it would take for a star to get from one hole in my ladder to another one.

Of course you don't make a meter stick out of it before all of this would take some amount of setting up and the pendulum formulas are known to the schoolbooks and so also the earth but if I ever got around to talking about an atomic clock to get out of a job at the bricks factory then what I would tell them is that future times will have sciences that no one could ever learn since you can tell from because for example an atomic clock would cost the labor power of many millions of workers, for many decades, or centuries, and then by the time it gets done the people who have their diplomas will cook up such technologies that it would take many specialists to get any of them to work.

[LosersCult]

That clock reminds me of the convergence meter from Steins;Gate

[doncanary]

Lets see some video on light--if you had a car that could travel the speed of light and you turned on the headlights would they work?