By using a rare thorium nucleus as a timekeeper, physicists have demonstrated the first working nuclear clock, a device that ...

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

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

Atomic clocks are established as the most precise timekeepers created. Atomic clocks work by deploying lasers to measure the vibrations of atoms (electromagnetic signals). By atoms oscillating at a ...

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

When it comes to navigation in outer space, keeping precise time is incredibly important, that's why NASA needs to use ...

Researchers demonstrated a new optical atomic clock that uses a single laser and doesn't require cryogenic temperatures. By greatly reducing the size and complexity of atomic clocks without ...

For many years, cesium atomic clocks have been reliably keeping time around the world. But the future belongs to even more accurate clocks: optical atomic clocks. In a few years' time, they could ...

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Picture a clock ...

Which atomic clocks are best? The first time zone, Greenwich Mean Time, was established in the late 1600s to assist sailors before the invention of the train and railway in the mid-1800s expanded the ...

An international research team has taken a decisive step toward a new generation of atomic clocks. The researchers have created a much more precise pulse generator based on the element scandium, which ...