The timing data gets translated into accurate three-dimensional location information - latitude, longitude, and altitude - as well as direction and speed. Some liken a GNSS satellite to a precise atomic clock hooked to a radio transmitting a time signal. ![]() ![]() ![]() Indeed, some posit that without atomic clocks, we would not enjoy the benefits (or suffer the occasional frustrations) of GPS. That’s one key reason today’s satellite navigation systems are so incredibly useful. In simple terms, the narrower the atomic transition, the more accurate the atomic clock. To achieve such high timing resolution, atomic clocks make use of ultra-narrow transitions in strontium atoms, providing orders-of-magnitude–better performance than their rubidium counterparts because of their narrower atomic features. Hence, atomic clocks are incredibly accurate, making frequency and time by far the most precisely measured of all physical quantities.Ītomic resonance is so sharp that it can tell whether a standard quartz-crystal clock deviates from the correct time by less than 1 part in 1015. The clocks worked by counting the flipping frequency of the electron spins of a cesium atom. Atomic clocks were first built and used in the mid-1960s with the specific aim of redefining a split second - a definition that has stood the test of time.
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