Time up for atomic clocks | The Register

"Scientists are plotting a new era of hyper-exact timekeeping, spelling the end
of
the atomic clock in its current form. Very accurate clocks are vital in
telecommunications, GPS, and other modern technological applications."

More from http://www.theregister.com/2006/04/24/photon_clocks/
--
Nick in Northallerton
Also @ www.whelan.me.uk
And nickw7coc on
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Nick wrote:
end of

Time Too Good to Be True
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-59/iss-3/p10.html

Without wishing to cause unnecessary distress, I would like to call
attention to a couple of issues concerning time. The first is merely
calendraic but the second concerns the future of time itself.

The first issue is that we may have to say farewell to leap seconds.
Leap seconds, as you might recall, are the occasional one-second
adjustments of our clocks that are made to maintain harmony between
the astronomical and atomic time scales. Personally, I would be sorry
to see leap seconds go because that would cost me the pleasure of
mulling over the best way to spend my next one. Although a mere
second might seem to be too short to cause jubilation, I believe any
gift of time deserves to be treasured. Also, one second is not really
that short. It is long enough to record a few million high-energy
scattering events, and in femtosecond physics, one second is
virtually an eternity. Also, one second is sufficient for a word or
quick kiss that might change your life.

See: http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-59/iss-3/p10.html

Very good Sam, thank you.
--
Nick in Northallerton
Also @ www.whelan.me.uk
And nickw7coc on
Yahoo & MSN
but I use http://www.trillian.cc as I like it better
also on Skype and Google talk