“I hate this,” mutters my roommate
as he walks toward the door. “How cold is it?” he asks glumly. I am certain he knows, since he was just outside five minutes ago, but I understand
the situation. “It says a low of nine, man, but if you’re lucky,
it’ll just be fifteen by the time you come back,” I answer. My roommate
is heading to the tent, an action that, in this weather, would be considered deranged by the majority of the world’s
population. There is no question that Duke basketball draws the most supportive
fans in the land, but this season, the team needs more than simply fans to win. It
needs time. Think back to the second game against Wake Forest. Now imagine if I told you the clock was wrong in that game. Duke
could have had an extra ten seconds to score a basket to win in regulation. Are
you angry? I have no proof in support of this speculation, but I have no proof
against it. For all that I know, the clock was twenty seconds fast simply because
of archaic technology. It is of utmost necessity that we are attentive to the
new technology in time, lest we continue to suffer through basketball games of uncertain duration.
A team of researchers from the National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST) is working to build a clock that is so accurate and so stable that if this clock was started
at the creation of the Earth, over four and a half billion years ago, the clock could be only one second off of the actual
age of the world (Ball, 2001). With such accuracy possible, imagine the repercussions
on the average Duke student. Think of the shame that one garners from a group
by arriving late and missing a tent check. Consider the anger that arriving too
late to enter the UNC game would generate. Contemplate the fury of the entire
population of Duke if our team was behind by one point in the final seconds of the game and we lost simply because the clock
was too fast. These could all be prevented by the development of the clocks Diddams
and his team are currently researching.
Simple
quartz clocks work by turning gears in time to a known constant, vibrating tiny quartz crystals within the watch. Diddams’ clocks work in a similar manner by measuring the oscillations of a single mercury ion and
giving a constant value to measure time (Diddams, 2001). The mercury, ion which
acts as the pendulum, is oscillated at an increasingly higher rate through the use of ultraviolet light, giving rise to the
name “optical clocks” (Diddams, 2001). Using this ultraviolet beam
allows scientists to increase oscillation to a period of one oscillation per femtosecond (a femtosecond is 1x10-15
seconds) rather than the rate measurable by microwaves, approximately one tenth of an oscillation per nanosecond (a nanosecond
is 1x10-9 seconds) (Diddams, 2001). In addition to developing more
accurate clocks, scientists hope to alter the constants that scientific researchers use to define the state of the universe. By developing such an accurate clock, scientists hope to measure the physical constants
of the universe that are derived by precisely timing constant values, such as velocity of a beam of light, over a specified
distance with previously unimaginable precision (Diddams, 2001). These optical
clocks could significantly alter scientific theorems by generating modified constants to relate the individual qualities of
the universe.
Previously, it has been impossible to measure
the oscillation of the trapped mercury ion at rates of one femtosecond because the ion moves so fast that quartz and atomic
clocks miss cycles and obtain inaccurate results (Diddams, 2001). Recent technological
advances, however, have led to the development of lasers which act essentially as gears to lower the frequency of oscillation
to a measurable rate (Diddams, 2001). This is accomplished by dividing the beam
multiple times by fixing other lasers onto it (Diddams, 2001). The extremely
high frequency laser is basically geared down in frequency to a point at which scientists can count on their results being
accurate (Diddams, 2001). By lowering the frequency to measurable rates, Diddams
hopes to substantially improve upon the accuracy and stability of atomic clocks which are currently the most accurate clocks
in existence (2001). These atomic clocks are accurate to a level of approximately
one second of deviation per thirty million years, but optical clocks have a potential to be nearly 150 times as accurate and
a great deal more stable (Diddams, 2001).
While the NIST is able to verify the stability
of the clock, the accuracy of the clock is still questionable until the verification that the microwave signal obtained from
the ionic oscillations is comparable in stability to the ionic oscillations themselves.
According to Philip Ball (2001) of Science News, “[stability] doesn’t
by itself guarantee accuracy”; he continues to comment that “a clock can stably gain a minute a day.” Diddams agrees that further research is necessary before his results can be supported
conclusively (2001).
Although
expensive, very accurate clocks are now available for purchase by consumers. The
main use of them is in industry, but their use is gradually becoming more main-stream.
As technology advances, wristwatches will surely become optically timed. Even
though scientists intend their clocks for a greater use than perfectly timed basketball, the repercussions of the new clocks
will trickle slowly down through society, most likely reaching future Duke students trapped in the tents of K-ville in the
dead of winter. As students sit in a tent doing homework, they could conceivably
study new theories that are a result of extremely accurate physical constants. Or,
more importantly, they could apply these clocks to the truly valuable aspects of life – like Duke basketball.
References
Ball, P. (2001,
July 13). Physicists better their time. [Electronic
Version] Nature Science
Update.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010719/010719-2.html#
Diddams, S.A. et al (2001, July 12). An optical clock based on a single trapped 199Hg+
ion.
Science, 293, 825-828.
