I've got THE Time

Last Updated (Wednesday, 16 September 2009 09:29) Written by Raymond Nakamura

If you want to know what time it is, just ask me. 

I now sport (thanks to my technophilic wife) a fancy new solar-powered watch that uses a radio signal to synchronize with an atomic clock in Colorado. 

What does all that mean?

Up and Atom

Atomic clocks are the most accurate way to keep time. They are NOT radioactive. Instead of a pendulum swinging back and forth, they focus on an electron jumping between energy states. The element of choice is cesium because it has a single electron in the outermost orbital. One guy is so enamored of its properties, he posted a list of songs about cesium.

The National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa uses a cesium beam clock but are in the process of upgrading to a cesium fountain clock. My watch synchronizes with the cesium fountain clock in Colorado, which uses lasers and microwaves and all manner of high tech gadgetry.

Catching the Wave

The time signal of the atomic clock in Colorado gets sent out on a radio frequency to most of North America. My watch has a receiver to synchronize the time automatically at night. I'm supposed to leave the watch near a window with the twelve o'clock pointing out toward Colorado. 

The distance between Vancouver and Boulder Colorado is 1744 km. Radio waves travel at the speed of light, so it would take 5.82 milliseconds according to Wolfram Alpha. But I don't know if my watch compensates for that.

Enlightened Power

When I say solar-powered, I'm not talking Sundials. My watch has solar cells on the face to convert light energy into electrical energy. This gets stored as chemical energy in battery. Interest in solar cells keeps growing and something about spray-on solar cells

So is this all just geeky hype? Maybe. But it does make me almost look like a grown up and gives me something to talk about at cocktail parties.

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