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The first clocks that tick with an atom's nucleus
Time and matter · Vienna, Austria · October 7, 2026

The first clocks that tick with an atom's nucleus

Atomic clocks keep time by watching electrons. This week teams in Vienna and Beijing reported the first clocks that tick with an atom’s nucleus. Vienna’s ran on its own for over 24 hours, steady to about a second in 30 million years. And it’s only a first prototype.

Source: TU Wien

Photo: Thorsten Schumm / TU Wien · press picture

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