Atomic Clocks? how accurate are they...?

Question

What if whoever makes them... (how are they made anyway) makes a slight error and we either lose time or gain time gradually, (Wow, what a thought), How is the time on Atomic Clocks calibrated, I mean my alarm clock (windup one) has a little lever to make the winding go faster or slower........... But how and who sets them when they are first placed into service?

Answer 1

Atomic clocks work by using a maser device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves through amplification due to stimulated emission of a radioactive gas, usually Cesium or Rubidium.

Atomic timing sources are available in two types of radioactive material; 1) Cesium and 2) Rubidium.

1) International System of Units (SI) has defined the second as the duration of 9 192 631 770 cycles of the radiation which corresponds to the transition between two energy levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom.

2) Rubidium standard clocks are prized for their low cost, small size (commercial standards are as small as 400 cm³), and short term stability. They are used in many commercial, portable and aerospace applications.

Atomic clocks are set according to Coordinated Universal Time, UTC.

UTC was officially initiated at the start of 1961. The International Atomic Time (TAI) instant 1961-01-01T00:00:01.422818 exactly was identified as UTC instant 1961-01-01T00:00:00.000000 exactly.

All accurate atomic time sources are set to this time.

Answer 2

The home atomic clock is actually a radio. There is a master clock in Colorado that sends impulses to all the clocks around the country.
The master atomic clock is supposed to be accurate to within one second in three thousand years.
You set your time zone, and whether your area has daylight saving time. All the rest is done in Colorado. If you take the batteries out of your clock, and put new ones in hours later, you never have to set the time. it will automatically set itself.
It's the same when your clock is new. There is no way to set it to the correct time. It's all done automatically by radio waves.

Answer 3

Any clock demands some oscillator to maintain time, in watches and so on it incredibly is a quartz crystal yet in atomic clocks it incredibly is the transitions of means stages of the caesium or despite textile is in the clock. those transitions ensue very rapid yet not an integer (entire variety) of transitions in keeping with 2nd. This leads to an blunders between the theoretically right 2nd and the 2nd as measured by the atomic clock.

Answer 4

There are a handful of questions within your question that would take a sick amount of time to explain. I suggest reading up on them at http://science.howstuffworks.com/atomic-clock4.htm It answers everything you asked.

Answer 5

u may genetically run out of family members before that cloak is inaccurate