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.
Quartz Clocks Video: • How Does a Clock Know ...
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.
Learn more about the NIST here: www.nist.gov/
And a big thanks to Tom Van Baak for letting me use your images.
Tom's Website: www.leapsecond....
And thank you to my beta testing group for your input and suggestions. Your help is very much appreciated :)
Music Accreditations:
Easy Lemon by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommon...
Source: incompetech.com...
Artist: incompetech.com/
Created By Ben Mesko

[@lauraagazzi6629]

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!

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

Thank you so much! And your work sounds very interesting :)

[@lauraagazzi6629]

Thanks! 😊 Btw, I also had a chance to talk to Dr. Judah Levine, at a conference some months ago. He's an AMAZING person. Gave me a bunch of new ideas to work on

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

@@lauraagazzi6629 Very cool! Yeah, he was super nice and very helpful

[@andrewcerul8221]

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

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed the video

[@dantecpa]

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

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

Muchas gracias!

[@MukeshSharma-xj8nh]

Why are you underrated

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

Haha, thank you!

[@Andrit-q8x]

Very good video. Explained very well.

[@marthareddy9554]

Excellent ❤❤❤

[@shorifulislamakib]

This video is outstanding. Easy to understand.😀😀

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed :)

[@yuvelq24]

Easy to understand, thanks!

[@AyanGhosh-ti8bm]

Well done 👍

[@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!

[@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.

[@masonsayer4550]

Your videos are great! Subscriber for life

[@makodgaming]

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

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

Haha, thanks!

[@basirulislam333]

Very nice explanation.

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

Thank you very much :)

[@basirulislam333]

@@OnTheShouldersofScience btw what is your educational background?

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

@@basirulislam333 I am currently a college student pursuing a physics degree

[@basirulislam333]

@@OnTheShouldersofScience But how you are so advanced. Is this topic in your college degree syllabus?

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

@@basirulislam333 This video was the result of extensive research and speaking with experts

[@eclectictreasures955]

And Thank You!!

[@tzaidi2349]

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

[@CVOFFICIAL1]

Thx bro nice information

[@Steve-y6q4q]

Very interesting

[@fernandalbm590]

Great videos ! 👏🏻👏🏻

[@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 😅

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

The jolt of electricity works using the piezoelectric effect which is explained more in the previous video on quartz clocks. These vibrations speed up or slow down the quartz’s vibration so that it matches the frequency of the caesium. You are right, there is so much more to this and this does gloss over a lot of details, but so does everything else in this video in order to make it short enough

[@black_platypus]

@@OnTheShouldersofScience Oh cool, thank you for taking the time to reply yourself! ✨

[@lunam7249]

ya, your right, he's glossing over the 6 years of university physics part!!!😂🎉😂😂🎉😂

[@parkerbond9400]

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

[@1906Farnsworth]

Yes, that is exactly right. It's not a cheesy 32 kilohertz watch crystal, though. The crystal is extra high quality and operates in a temperature controlled chamber to make it as stable as it can be even before being adjusted by the "atomic" part.

[@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.

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

@@SaeedNeamati Thank you for your support. I have a busy schedule in college right now, but I really want to continue making videos. There will be one soon!

[@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...

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

Beware the nuked food!! ☢️☢️ lol

[@johnnemeth6913]

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

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

Synchronized how? Generally, we define some time to begin with and set all the clocks based around that time.

[@reubendolby6972]

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.

[@berndp3426]

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)

[@gator1984atcomcast]

GPS gives accurate time as well as position. That is why our iPhones keep such accurate time.

[@davidfleming4052]

Umm...Beidou is on iphones. Query the topic cumulative latency with 5G + Beidou.

[@fuison55]

I too, am a fan of time.

[@TimRobertsen]

Nice!:)

[@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🤷‍♂️

[@lunam7249]

no, the electrons specifically resonate at thier happy frequency, 1 or 1 trillion

[@patitakalyansahoo1532]

Why rubidium and caesium is chosen?

[@OnTheShouldersofScience]

@@patitakalyansahoo1532 They are alkali metals which are unique in that they have one valence (outer shell) electron. This makes it easy for the clock to measure a single frequency to keep time instead of getting confused with other frequencies from other valence electrons that would share the same space.

[@patitakalyansahoo1532]

@OnTheShouldersofScience thank you sir.

[@LosersCult]

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

[@Troeltsch7873]

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.

[@doncanary1029]

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?

[@liftnd844]

It is probably more easy to understand to use 9,192,631,770 hertz versus 9.192631770 ghz. Never seen it written in the second way

[@YourAashique]

Allah Hu Akbar

[@gator1984atcomcast]

Get an Apple watch. It will be as accurate as an Atomic Clock.

[@wolfgangornig3556]

But your Apple watch is correct only because there is a time source provided by an atomic clock.