Atomic clocks have been around for nearly 80 years, but their successors—nuclear clocks—are ready to take the stage. Two independent studies, both uploaded as preprints, report reliable timekeeping ...

For the first time, scientists used an atomic nucleus as a clock. The world’s most precise timepieces are made using atoms, specifically their electrons. But clocks based on atomic nuclei — protons ...

A breakthrough in chronometry decades in the making could redefine the limits of how we keep time. Using atoms of thorium-229, physicists have built functional clocks based not on the oscillations of ...