World's first thorium-229 nuclear clock shows potential for ultra-precise timekeeping and fundamental physics tests.

(koto_feja/Getty Images) A breakthrough in chronometry decades in the making could redefine the limits of how we keep time.

But physicists have long dreamt of even better clocks that run on atomic nuclei, which are less sensitive to environmental ...

First dreamed up decades ago, the world's first nuclear clocks are set to improve quickly, becoming more precise and aiding ...

A clock based on radioactive thorium atoms realises a long-held ambition, demonstrating a technology that could eventually ...

For many years, scientists all around the world have been working towards this goal, now suddenly things are happening very fast: it was only in April that a team led by Prof Thorsten Schumm (TU Wien, ...

The timekeeping device is made with atomic nuclei of thorium, although it is not yet more precise than standard atomic clocks. Reading time 2 minutes Meet the “nuclear” clock: a device that marks the ...

FOR THE discerning timekeeper, only an atomic clock will do. Whereas the best quartz timepieces will lose a millisecond every six weeks, an atomic clock might not lose a thousandth of one in a decade.