Home▸Quantum Physics▸Atomic vs Classical Clocks: Long-Term Timekeeping Stability

⚛️ Atomic vs Classical Clocks: Long-Term Timekeeping Stability

Run three clocks — a mechanical pendulum, a quartz crystal, and a cesium atomic clock — through simulated months and years at high speed and watch their accumulated timing error diverge by many orders of magnitude, showing why the SI second is defined by an atomic transition.

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⚙ Under the hood

Fast-forward a pendulum clock, a quartz clock and a cesium atomic clock through simulated months and years and watch their accumulated timing error diverge by many orders of magnitude on a live log-log chart, showing why the SI second is defined by an atomic transition.

atomic clockcesiumpendulum clockquartz clocktimekeepingmetrologySI secondfrequency stabilityquantum standards

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