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atoms
World's most precise clock keeps time to 1 second in 3.7 billion years
By Darren Quick
23:27 February 4, 2010 PST
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have built an enhanced version of an experimental atomic clock based on a single aluminum atom that would neither gain nor lose one second in about 3.7 billion years. That makes it the world’s most precise clock, more than twice as precise as the previous pacesetter based on a mercury atom. Read More
Large Hadron Collider back up and running
By Darren Quick
22:55 November 22, 2009 PST
Contrary to claims by some scientists that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was being sabotaged from the future to save the world, it is back up and running. The LHC is now beyond the point where it was in 2008 when it had to be shut down just nine days after it had commenced sending beams around its 27km (17 mile) circuit on September 10 last year. Read More
Ytterbium times its run for next-gen atomic clocks
By Darren Quick
23:44 August 17, 2009 PDT
Technically, no clock can be more accurate than cesium standards such as NIST-F1 – the cesium fountain atomic clock that serves as the United States' primary time and frequency standard. But researchers have managed to develop an experimental atomic clock based on ytterbium atoms that boasts precision comparable to that of NIST-F1. The humble second was chosen as the International System of Units' (SI) base unit of time since it is based on the properties of the cesium atom (one second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom). Read More
Large Hadron Collider readies for half-power restart
By Paul Lester
18:43 August 11, 2009 PDT
The date 10 September 2008 was forseen by some as the end of the world, at least if you believed scientists who were trying to pull the plug on an experiment that some dubbed the ‘Doomsday Test’. As it turned out a faulty electrical connection brought proceedings to a halt. Now the $9 billion ‘atom-smasher’, aka the Large Hadron Collider, which was developed by CERN to recreate the chemical reactions that took place when the universe came into existence around 14 billion years ago, is gearing up for a restart. Read More
Scientists stick with silicon to extend Moore's Law
By Jeff Salton
23:40 July 26, 2009 PDT
Scientists at Rice University and North Carolina State University have found a method of attaching molecules to semiconducting silicon that may help manufacturers reach past the current limits of Moore's Law as microprocessors become smaller and more powerful. Read More
Thinnest superconducting metal ever may have wide application
00:57 June 10, 2009 PDT
Scientists at the University of Texas have developed a superconducting sheet of lead only two atoms thick, a remarkably pliable nanomaterial that could help lead to new breakthroughs in electricity generation and computer processing speeds. Read More
Mr Stiffy
- February 9, 2010 @ 06:26 UTC
