Perfect timekeeping is more complicated than you think. Most clocks slow down over time (not that many people notice), and tiny imperfections in the manufacturing process ensure that no two timepieces ...

For decades, scientists have tried to build a device even more precise than an atomic clock, which keeps time using electrons, the negatively charged particles that whiz around in an atom. Now, two ...

Two teams of physicists have made the world’s first nuclear clocks. These radical new devices keep time using fluctuations in the energy states of an atom’s nucleus, rather than those of its electrons ...

Atomic clocks have been around for nearly 80 years, but their successors—nuclear clocks—are ready to take the stage. Two independent studies, both uploaded as preprints, report reliable timekeeping ...

For decades, physicists have pursued a goal that sounds nearly impossible: to build a clock that keeps time using an atom's nucleus rather than the electrons orbiting it. "Having worked in this field ...

One reality of modern life is that people walking down a sidewalk tend to have their attention focused downward at their phones. Our lives exist inside those phones. But should they? Public clocks are ...

Alfredo has a PhD in Astrophysics and a Master's in Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces from Imperial College London. Alfredo has a PhD in Astrophysics and a Master's in Quantum Fields and ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. (koto_feja/Getty Images) A breakthrough in chronometry decades in the making could redefine the limits of how we keep time. Using ...

Two independent research teams have achieved a longstanding goal in physics: building a working nuclear clock. The devices, developed by Beichen Huang and colleagues at Tsinghua University and by Luca ...

The best timekeepers today—atomic clocks—work off the quantum vibrations of an atom, specifically its electrons. But physicists have long dreamt of even better clocks that run on atomic nuclei, which ...

The world's first nuclear clocks have ticked. A team of physicists has demonstrated a working timekeeping device regulated not by orbiting electrons — as in conventional atomic clocks — but by ...