Atomic Clocks, Ahoy! | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh there's Chuck and Jerry's back we. don't know if you guys do or not but. Jerry's back cuz yeah guest producer Ben. was sitting in for a while and now. Jerry's back so everybody Jerry's back. in case you hadn't. hurt uh yeah and we're back from a from. a break I had spring break and thereby.

you had spring break you're welcome yeah. thanks a thanks a lot where'd you go one. of us gets a kid we all get a kid yep uh. I went to ISO Palms again for the first. time in like four years very nice and uh. it was great it was good to be back I. love that place did you get arrested. again no never got arrested there oh. what are you talking about I've never. been arrested anywhere I know I just. wanted to throw everybody off okay the. the Casual listeners are like oh truck. got arrested for okay yeah dig it up.

people it doesn't. exist so um I am really excited about. this one Chuck it' been on my list for a. while uh I think I came across a a top. 10 list about like 10 weird things about. atomic clocks that house St Works writer. named Patrick Kyer wrote yeah and I I. just had it on the list and I I but I. hadn't really read it enough to to know. what was going on and it wasn't until I. started digging into the research that I. was like these things are really.

interesting and the idea of our modern. world you know I sound like frozen. caveman lawyer but it's true like. everything from Air Traffic Control to. the internet to um uh basically. everything except talking to one another. on cans connected by string right you. can thank atomic clocks for it it just. simply wouldn't be possible without the. atomic clock yeah and by saying that. you're what you're saying is is and.

we'll dig into this more later is that. the. world uh for everything to operate. correctly in a tech forward World it has. to be synchronized right and you can't. synchronize something unless everybody. agrees on what time it is MH and that's. all an atomic clock is it is very simply. and we'll get into the how these things. work which sounds difficult but it's. actually pretty simple still uh it is. the most accurate time piece on planet. Earth and it is a self correcting clock.

that uses old Tech in a in a way in the. form of quartz crystals oh you gave it. away well I mean this is the first thing. we're going to talk about. probably uh quartz crystals which is old. Tech um and it that it is constantly. being checked and corrected using uh new. tech in the form of the element CCM 133. yeah very very well put um that that.

sets itself very very often and. accurately yeah because everybody who's. ever had any experience with a clock or. a watch or something like that knows. that it can gain or lose time it it it. um it can drift essentially you know. what they say though what do they say. even the worst clock is uh correct twice. a day yeah they do say that yeah um so. you mentioned quartz right I did that's. a big deal and what quartz is if you. ever I had no idea what quartz was uh in.

a watch or a clock I just had seen. quartz and you know quartz watch it it. was like decades before I realized it. wasn't a brand that they were saying hey. there's courts inside and what they're. doing is boasting about how reliable. their clock is because when we used to. um we used to use things like mechanical. stuff like Springs that you would wind. that would power a bunch of gears and. that would kind of um gears yeah the. movement of the gears would tick off. seconds right how how did gears work.

though oh we'll get into that in a. different. episode right or you had a pendulum. ticking off time something like that and. then when we move to quartz um what. quartz does is it ticks off time as well. because we figured out at some I don't. know who tried this first but if you. apply an electrical current to quarts. you. mechanically like disfigure it it called. the Peto electric effect uh and after. you I guess as a result of that that.

contortion it emits energy it's like. it's like its way of saying uncle and. when it emits energy it emits it at a. really reliable frequency and we figured. out how to use that reliable frequency. to tell time and it's pretty pretty nuts. how complicated clocks are and just how. it it kind of it to me Falls in line. with that Arthur St Clark quote that any. sufficiently advanced Tech techology.

will be indistinguishable from Magic I. think applying electricity to quartz to. keep time is right up there with that. kind of thing yeah uh you mentioned it's. a pizo electric material and you know we. apply electricity to it just to affect. it like you could you could bend quartz. or smack it or flick it with your finger. or something any kind of mechanical. stress on it and it would do the same. thing and it would produce an electrical. charge that's going to come out in. pulses and what those pulses do is they.

in the terms of a of a clock or a watch. is they mimic The Swinging of that. pendulum but in this case like a. pendulum ideally swings at once per. second in this case it's. 32,768 pulses per second that that. quartz crystal is emitting and you. talked about whacking it or something it. looks like uh if you look at like the. quartz they use it looks like a little. tiny tuning fork oh Neato I hadn't seen. that yeah it's just a little itty bitty. tiny tuning T fork and just like you.

would whack a tuning fork and it would. you know uh whatever a tuning fork does. it. goes that's not what this is about uh. but that quch does the same thing and. we'll come back to that. 32,768 pulses per second a few times. because the whole idea with the. development and as we get into history. here of the atomic clock is the more. little pulses or ticks that you have the. more accurate within a second of of time.

the more accurate a clock is going to be. and the development of the atomic clock. is has always been about just making. that number as as large as possible MH. and I guess we shouldn't reveal where. we're at now but it's in the matter of. billions well so if you start from the. say like an old grandfather clock as a. pendulum SW swings from one side to the. other that's a second right and we'll. call that a tick it ticks off a second. by swinging from one side to the other. and if that pendulum is off just a.

little bit Say by a tenth of a second. right mhm every 10 seconds it's going to. lose a second right because it has far. fewer things to tick off it has one tick. per second and like you were kind of. hinting at with crystals you have 32,000. plus ticks per second so if it misses. one tick out of like what if it misses a. tenth of the ticks that's far far fewer. um in total than it is to that one tick.

or that tenth of a tick that the. pendulum is missing and so the more. accurate the clock is the more um it's. what's called stable and that's the goal. of super precise clocks stability which. is it's going to measure a second. exactly the same now as it will 10,000. years from now that's stability and. that's the that's the goal and that's. why we've started to turn to things like. the atom which if we can figure out how. to met measure the atom accurately it's.

going to it's going to release X number. of ticks every time anywhere in the. universe if we can measure it when it's. excited um and that's kind of where. we're at with atomic clocks yeah and if. if you're wondering you know uh in the. terms of analog technology with watches. and clocks uh they fall out of whack for. a number of reasons because mainly. because it's analog technology like a. spring gets weaker over time uh gears. can come out of balance uh even when it.

comes to crystals like when they when. they got the quartz crystal involved. that was pretty good like. 32,768 pulses per second like that's not. too bad at all uh but they can uh quartz. can Gunk up a little bit M um because. it's a a naturally occurring thing and. we'll talk about where you find that in. a minute uh and temperature uh. atmospheric pressure all of these things. can throw even quartz out of whack right. because it operates really well you know.

basically at room temperature um but. once you start applying you know uh. really cold like a watch in the really. really cold weather an analog watch or. really really hot weather isn't going to. be as accurate so all of these things. again for many many many hundreds of. years like all this stuff was fine um. because they just needed to tell time. and get it pretty darn close and that. was good enough but when we started. going into space when we started. launching satellites certainly when the.

internet came online we started using. GPS to do things like oh uh a get you. places B bomb unfortunately bomb uh. hopefully the right place from a. satellite communication in a war MH uh. being off a little bit can cost human. lives and lose a lot of money in other. cases so yeah accuracy and that. stability was a really really important. goal to reach yeah I found a really good. um uh kind of comparison of of you know.

why that's so important that accuracy so. like with a quartz clock or a watch it. might lose 15 seconds over 30 days which. is not bad if you're running a train. schedule a quartz watch will do just. fine right but if you're trying to like. say land a a lunar lander on the moon um. if you're off by something like a. millisecond you might overshoot the Moon. by like 100 100 200 miles 300 or so.

kilomet just by a millisecond um and a. Lander needs to be accurate within like. 100 met so a millisecond off in your. calculations can make you miss your um. your spot by like 3,000 times that's not. good at all so that's why we need this. kind of accurate stuff and and there's. all tons of applications like we'll talk. about it later um but it just kind of. goes to show like just how vital time is. when you start using it as a factor in.

um really heavy formulas which are the. kind of formulas they use to land um. Landers on the moon the heaviest yeah I. got one more for you a microsc even just. a. microsc uh an error and the in the order. of a microsecond can be a 300 meter or. about 320 something yards difference so. that's still a lot yeah sure so again. you need precision and uh people have. been working for quite a while now to. make clocks as precise as possible do.

you want to like take a break and then. start talking about the history of the. atomic clock I think so I think that was. I mean maybe one of our best setups ever. if between you and me I don't want to. get this out on the air but okay all. right this is just us talking we'll edit. that out all right we'll edit that out. but I think we're on the right track. okay well we'll be right back everybody. [Music].

oh so we have a physics uh very famous. physics Professor named Isidor Rabbi uh. who turned down the job of being. oppenheimer's like right-hand man at um. Los Alamos for the Manhattan Project. instead went off and did his own thing. and one of the things he developed is um.

he discovered nuclear magnetic resonance. and he figured out that's used in like. the Wonder machine the MRI that's how it. does its thing he figured out how to how. to train that into or how to use it to. gr effect in what's called an atomic. beam magnetic resonance which. essentially is a way to trap and push. around and excite atoms that you want to. specifically mess with that's that's. maybe the 10,000 ft version of what.

Atomic beam magnetic resonance is yeah. and when we say we're going to say. things like exciting atoms that just. means they're moving around yeah so just. I guess we could toss it out real quick. now that an atom has a ground state. which is its resting state and an. excited state and it can have multiple. excited States but it's either resting. or in some sort of excited state or. other right so rabie was like Hey this. this nuclear beam I have a feeling you. guys could could make an atomic clock. out of it and everybody said you guys.

why don't you make it and he said you go. make it I hecking dare you was his. famous quote you do it no you do it so. so somebody went off and did it yeah and. I think within four years the National. Bureau of Standards which is now the. National Institute of Standards and. Technology they said um we've got this. we did it rabby and he's like what are. you talking about he had had terrible. forgetfulness yeah yeah they said we we. built the first uh atomic clock um and.

this is the earliest version used. ammonia as the molecule and the source. of the vibrations so uh they were using. like copper piping to heat it up and. shoot it out it was compared to what we. have today very rudimentary but it. worked pretty well as a proof of concept. as in hey we can we can do this but it. was was a little bit off uh I think it. was about a second every four months MH. better than quartz uh but still not as. good as we needed to get to but again it.

proved conceptually that an atomic clock. was a thing that works better yes for. sure but what's strange about ammonia is. it has a lower frequency so there's less. ticks per second uh than the quartz. crystal does it has like. 23,000 um ticks per second or 23, 870. Hertz right but like you said they. figured out that yes you can use an atom. to keep track of time but they're like. we got to find something better than. that. um let's try cesium and in 1952 yeah.

exactly I I could not find anywhere why. they decided on cesium I know it's like. neutral and maybe it's like it only. maybe because it only does have two. states either ground or excited um I I'm. not exactly sure why but it is it's a. really weird element and it's difficult. to work with um especially at like room. temperature because it can just suddenly. catch fire if it wants to well I saw why. they used it you'll be glad to know well. all of this stuff has to deal with.

oscillation which is basically whether. it's a pendulum swinging or that spring. moving the gears oscillation just means. something that's moving back and forth. at a regular rate and it turns out that. CCM 133 and and when something is. oscillating in when you're speaking of. like a clock or a Time piece that's. called a a frequency reference like. you're literally referencing a frequency. that needs to be steady and CCM 133 they. found. just was the most consistent frequency.

reference that they could find in nature. uh and that was important because using. something natural meant that humans all. of a sudden were taken out of the. equation for the first time which was a. breakthrough because it's like this. stuff is consistent till the cows come. home and human hands aren't making it so. no the only thing that humans have to do. is to to figure out how to excite it and. once you get it excited it's going to do. the same thing every time like I said. anywhere in the universe yeah and then.

how to measure it and those are like the. advances in atomic clocks figuring out. how to more accurately measure cesium. atoms once you get them excited that's. kind of like the advance once they. figured out how to excite cesium and. then how to measure it they had the. first atomic clock all the way back in. 1952 um the thing is is uh it it they. started kind of advancing by Leaps and. Bounds because with cesium I think do. you want to go ahead and reveal like how. many cesium gives off every every second.

I guess we should huh I think you should. take it man all right so it was 32,000. and change for quartz for that pulse uh. CCM 133 oscillates uh at. 9,192,631,770. right. that's I think we would all agree that's. quite a jump from 32,000 and change it. is and like you said oscillate is. something that is just moving back and.

forth you it can also oscillate up and. down and if something oscillates up and. down what you're talking about is a wave. and if you put a bunch of waves together. you have a frequency right if you if you. have if you have a point in space that. you're detecting a wave passing and you. count how many pass in in one second. you're tracking the frequency of that. wavelength right which I think in in. that sense is a Hertz whatever happens. in a second is a Hertz that's the that's. the old slogan yeah and so if you were. if you could see the the waves coming.

off of a cesium atom as it um returns. back to its ground state it got really. excited and it shoots off a photon and. the photon itself has waves where if you. could if you could just stand still and. watch it pass and count the waves you. would count 9 b192 mil 631 770 waves. pass by you in exactly one second and it. became so clear that you could lit set. your watch to this kind of thing if you.

could figure out how to measure it that. back in 1967 the International Community. said let's just attach the second to the. cesium atom yeah and the cesium atom. said I better get some money for this. yeah like let's literally redefine what. a second means based on this cesium 133. uh prior to that it was based on on like. you know the sun coming up and going. down it was a solar day right so it was.

186 th and. 400 thousandth man that's really hard to. get my head around for sure one over. 86,400 uh is the average uh length of a. solar day just that little fraction so. they said let's just redefine it and I. think we should go through a little bit. sort of the jumps that they made yeah I. agree because this is all just kind of. like I mean who cares about this what. people really want to know is how much. more accurate was this stuff uh in.

1959 uh I believe the 1955 was the first. cesan base clock and then in 1959 they. had an error rate of 1 second per 2,000. years uh 5 years later it was uh Second. Every 6,000 years it could lose or gain. a. second uh let me see what's the next one. 1999 well let's go to the mid-70s first. uh it was uh 1 second every 300,000. years and then finally in 1999 when they.

uh debuted the cesium Fountain which. that's still what they're using today. right yeah that's that's kind of the. general state-ofthe-art although they're. just still looking into new stuff too. how much better do you need to get it. though they're getting it pretty good uh. so 1999 it became uh you could lose a. second every 20 million years wow and. then by 2013 they said we can actually. go back in time and say that using this. method we have not lost a second since. the big.

right so that last one you mentioned is. a strontium lattice clock um which is. again we just talked about once we. figure out how to measure the vibration. of an atom once it's excited and returns. to its ground state it's just a question. of becoming better and better at. measuring it and so they figured out. that if they if you hold strontium atoms. in laser beams form a lattice you can. basically hold them in place and measure. them much more accurately and so that's. what represented that crazy Amazing Leap.

and I was trying to figure out like how. can they say like this thing would not. have lost a second since the beginning. of the universe how can you possibly do. thaty claim it really is but they know. how to back it up so what they do is. they'll compare the output of one strum. clock to another strum clock and um the. difference the biggest difference. between the two they'll take that and. say that that's the discrepancy right. and because these things vibrate at such. crazy huge numbers per second that the.

the the like the loss of like one or two. waves over a second um it just adds up. to these crazy huge numbers so it it. lost one wave essentially for every 10. to the 10th power waves which is like I. think 10 billion waves right so when you. start adding that up to the number of. seconds in a day in a year in a century. you you suddenly realize like okay this. thing is not going to lose the second. for you know 15 billion years that's how.

they do that amazing math is how they do. it I should say let's give math it's due. for once yeah all the maths as they say. in England for sure so uh we're going to. explain how this works now um kind of. the remarkable um surprise of it all is. that these things and I I guess it's not. much of a surprise because I mentioned. it at the very beginning it could have. been but they still still use quartz as.

part of this system it's just it's a. feedback loop that starts with a quartz. crystal mhm and ends up with the quartz. crystal and in between this science. Voodoo happens that just is all about. self-correcting as it feeds back into. that quartz crystal to be you know shot. back out again in the form of microwaves. yes and I'm glad that you really kind of. stepped up and took charge here because. um. when we're researching we'll send like.

you know especially day of stuff we'll. send just like little last minute. details or maybe better explanations of. something that we have when when we're. researching and um Chuck stepped up and. was like okay let's not overe explain. this this is actually kind of a simple. thing in concept and uh you rescued me. from from sheer Madness it is our our. thing though I had looked into the abyss. and found atomic clocks just staring. back at me and uh it was it was. something that you really you really.

rescued me from it and I appreciate it I. want to say hats off to you well thanks. but we're not done oh God like there's. still a chance to overe explain this. into confusion well then allow me to try. that all right take it away because it's. all about this outermost electron right. yeah yeah so with cesium I I guess then. the reason they selected cesium is. because the it has 55 electrons 54 of. them are so tightly locked in orbit. around the nucleus that they basically. don't get excited yeah that 55th. outermost electron though it gets.

excited pretty easy right but it only. gets excited if when it's exposed to a. frequency of electromagnetic radiation. at specifically 9 b192. m631 770 Cycles or herts if you offered. ice cream it gets kind of excited sure. yeah but it may not fall out of its. ground state it depends is it Jenny's. ice cream is it that like butter cake. gooey buttercake it's going to get. excited from that one is it just you.

know some dippy old you know Briar. that's been in your freezer for several. month briers poor no shade on briers but. if it sits there for a few months it's. gonna form ice crystals no nobody even. the cesium Adam's not going to get. excited by this yeah what was it in uh. did you see the Alfred Brooks movie. mother uh Albert Brooks and yes what' I. say I think you said Alfred Brooks and I. think that's his. Butler well no but well now that we're. off on this uh track you know their.

original name was Einstein Albert. Einstein was his name no Albert Brooks's. name yes because his brother was Super. Dave Osborne Bob Einstein oh my goodness. yes I forgot about that obviously. changed his name but uh yeah his his. movie mother uh with a great Debbie uh. Reynolds Carrie Fisher's Mom that's. right boy we're just all over the place. y uh there was a very funny joke about. the ice crystals on the ice cream and I. can't remember what she called it but. something like a protective barrier or.

something that it forms like to really. preserve the ice cream underneath that. is so that's a good one I feel bad for. flightman from Northern Exposure because. he has to play such a jerk and he does. it so well yeah um I saw an episode of. that a couple of episodes on our last. tour actually you know Chuck I think. have you seen the whole series I mean I. saw it back when I was a huge northern. fan but then watched a couple I watched. the the first two ups when we were I was. in the hotel in one of our our towns mhm.

and how did it hold up you know it held. up pretty good for a show of that era. okay great fantastic I'm glad to hear. that yeah I loved it I was going to say. I think that the last episode was one of. the best last episodes of any show ever. I don't remember it oh no okay sorry not. last episode flashman's last episode oh. oh oh when he goes back to New York okay. I don't remember did he leave and the. show continued yeah for a little while. yeah see I don't remember uh this guy. Steve Carell left the office I was done.

yeah his last uh there was some moments. of Brilliance in there in the office. after Carell left but it wasn't yeah it. wasn't reliably great every single. episode yeah and they got wackier and. wackier as time went on but that happens. especially when a showrunner leaves to. how do we get sidetracked I'm talking. about the ice talk about yeah mother and. by the way I just wanted to give a shout. out to the Alfred Brooks Al movie um. Defending Your Life oh so great far and. away is best. movie if you ask me there's a really.

good documentary on him that's out now. that Rob rer did if in case you're. interested okay cool all right so we're. back to cesium and I was saying that it. gets excited at that same frequency that. it emits a photon at right that's what. it takes and so what they figured out is. that you can figure you can find out if. your your quartz crystal oscillator the. thing that you're using to keep time. with mhm it it's super reliable but. again it get subject to frequency drift. here or there but if you um you can find.

out how far off or whether it's keeping. reliable Time by comparing it to the. excitement of a cesium atom yes if if. the if the quartz crystal is putting out. the right frequency the cesium atom will. become excited and it will shoot off a. photon and if enough of them do that in. this atomic clock this gas chamber. essentially that they have then you know. that your quartz crystal is keeping the. right time because it's emitting the. right number of uh pulses.

itself I the thing is Chuck and this is. where the madness lies for me I don't. understand how they take 32,000 and. change um Hertz coming from the quartz. crystal and translate that into 9. billion and change Hertz that excites. the cesium atom that's what I don't get. do you get. that well the way I understood it is. that those two things are are working. independently like the the cesium is.

doing its thing at 9 billion plus Hertz. okay just to get a more accurate. measurement and then it's sending that. correction via uh another electronic. signal I think it goes into a what's. called a detector that's to me where the. magic is cu I watch a bunch of videos. even kid science videos and it just says. it goes into the detector yeah and then. back out feeding into the quartz again. uh right that I don't know what happens. in that detector I mean it's detecting.

right yeah I think they're actually. track tracking the photons it's one of. the beauties of it I think that's why. they kept quartz crystal um technology. around is because it releases radio. waves and we can read those really. easily so that has that's one reason. they kept quarts around it keeps good. time and we understand it really well. but so this is but this is where I'm. throwing off like are they comparing the. number of ticks that the quartz is. giving off to the number of ticks that. the cesium atom has given off in that.

same time span and if the if the two. match then you know the quartz is still. keeping good time if it's off a little. bit then you know how much to adjust it. because that cesium atom is not going to. release any more waves than that number. it's it's just not there's never going. to be 771 there's never going to be. 769 it's always going to be that 9. billion number so I guess if you compare. how many the cry which can have more or.

less overtime depending on how well it's. functioning if you compare those two. then you know that your quartz clock is. keeping fully accurate time is that what. it is I think that's the deal and all. that it does once it. reads uh once the those atoms are like. no you're actually off a little bit I. think it just tweaks that original. electric current in the feedback loop. feeding back into the quartz right it. punishes the quartz crystal. the spanking no no it's like that that.

one guy who's being tested for ESP at. the beginning of. Ghostbuster not. again I mean I think I think that's I. think that's it great good night so. let's talk about the second a little. more because I think we kind of jump. past it and I think it's worth um. including the actual definition because. it's so great yeah what is it now since. the official change yeah so this is what. they changed to in 1967. the second they're talking about the.

second every everybody who walks around. is like yeah there 60 seconds in a. minute this is the international. definition of what a second is it's the. duration of. 9,192,631,770. periods of the radiation corresponding. to the transition between the two. hyperfine levels of the ground state of. the cesium 133 atom by the way everybody. this definition refers to a cesium atam. at rest at a temperature of 0 Kelvin.

yeah wow so but yeah but you're like. okay that doesn't that doesn't really. make any sense but now that you. understand how atomic clocks are work it. it does make sense they're saying if you. have something that is timed to. this you have a second that's a second. right there everybody's going to be on. the same measure that's why it's the. international standard everyone is on. the same measure and the cesium atom is. is never going to give out more or less.

of those waves when it's excited yeah. and like you said you know the reason. one of the reasons that uh quartz was. used is because we had worked with it up. until that point we understood it a lot. of the tech was built around it uh we've. known how to work with it and repair. things using it so like they didn't want. to uh reinvent the wheel here they just. wanted to make that quartz run more. perfectly and it turned out it was you.

know sitting around in Ora deposits in. where what Maine and South Dakota yeah. in cesium comes from it's pretty rare. yeah and the the other thing that. strikes me about this Chuck too is was. when we adopted that second in. 1967 and removed our our seconds from. the solar day because it's so inaccurate. clui really um we actually became better. at tracking the solar day when we turned. our our attention to tracking the atom. for for use as a benchmark for time.

rather than the solar day I just think. that's pretty neat and ironic yeah I. mean they've calculated that too right. like uh because now we have what's. called uh International atomic time uh. tiai it's one of those backwards uh. French things yeah backwards French. things um but now we we can actually. track using universal time and against. the Earth's rotation and you know the. fact that we're off because you know. things can slow the Earth down uh space.

dust can solar winds uh atmospheric. resistance uh the moon you know and. gravity tugging on the earth so they can. say now that uh UTC coordinated. universal time is 30 seconds. behind uh the tiai right which is pretty. pretty cool to be able to know that yeah. like they're they're keeping better. track of the the um spin of the earth. than the spin of the earth is yeah it's. like it's that's crazy like they figured.

out that the Earth is slowing down by. about 2 milliseconds each day could not. have done that when you're pinning the. second to. 1864 hundredth of a solar day you need. atomic clocks to measure stuff like that. so I just think that's just. fantastically neat and they they've done. so many other stuff or so many other. things with this already too um I say we. take a break we come back and talk about. some of the applications for timekeeping. in an ultra precise way let's do. [Music].

it so uh atomic clocks were a huge leap. forward but they were very big at first. um obviously all kinds of tech like this. it just gets smaller and smaller MH uh I.

think about 20 years ago they built an. atomic clock uh that could be uh put. upon a microprocessor it's crazy totally. crazy and it's important to point out. here that there are uh a little more. than 400 atomic clocks all over the. world and more than 70 Labs operating. these clocks M but you still need like. you know one ring to rule them all you. need one clock to tell all the clocks. what time time it is so the. international Bureau of weights and.

measures uh averages all these atomic. clocks that are operating in the world. right uh it gives better weight to the. ones that are really accurate so if you. got a gold star because your atomic. clock in your lab is super accurate. you're going to be more heavily weighted. if there's a lot of known pot users in. your lab they're not going to weight it. as heavily so well ironically we'll see. here in a minute comes from Colorado. that's right uh but it is uh then. they're like all right this is the the. real time uh for the entire world and.

then they message that out as what I. mentioned earlier International atomic. time and here in the United States or I. guess in all of North America uh that is. broadcast out from a radio station in. Fort Collins C Colorado uh. wwvb that all American clocks syn to. yeah there radio control clocks exactly. yeah so if you have an atomic watch or. an atomic alarm clock or something at. your house it's actually passively. picking up those radio waves from.

wwvb and those radio waves are telling. the clock what time it is so it's. keeping accurate time because it's. getting the information from from radio. wwvb radio free. Europe yeah but that's the time that. they're like all right this is what time. it is on the internet and that's what. time all your trains are going to run. and your planes are going to take off. and land yeah uh although those are. always going to be late but um you know. if we're operating in space if we're.

using GPS and you can explain the thing. you found on GPS because that was pretty. cool but all of it is set to that that. agreed upon average of all those atomic. clocks yeah and so people have their own. like timekeeping stuff like if you uh if. you have an iPhone or like Android or. something like that whoever is um. serving that that phone has their own. time servers but their time servers are. still if you trace it back far enough. yeah some they're get getting their. information from the atomic clocks that. are being maintained at least in the US.

by the National Institutes of standard. and technology and then we also have to. give a shout out to the US Naval. Observatory they started at first and. they still maintain their own set of. atomic clocks and they are the official. timekeeper for the Department of Defense. but they're also the ones that you can. call to get the accurate time and in the. United States you can call 20276. 21401 oh man and you will hear the voice. of a man from the 70s who died in the. '90s who's still telling you what time.

it is he apparently spent several days. Fred Goldsmith I think what's that. number again 202. 76241 all right I'm typing that into my. phone because I had a a weird urge about. two months ago to call time M like we. did when we were kids you could call and. get time and weather in most places y. all right I'm glad to know that's a. thing cuz I'm going to I'm going to it. from the phone that I know has all that. information on it so so yeah I was.

reading like a AARP article on it. appropriately enough and um I think the. actor name is Fred Fred Goldsmith right. uh yeah that's where I get a lot of this. information no no no but are you getting. mailers yet uh no I found I found it on. the internet okay just wait till you get. your first mailer he he apparently um. recorded every possible time it could be. including seconds over the course of. several days and they still used these. recordings to tell you what time it is. amazing one of the other amazing things.

I saw is like they they just expected. this to kind of go away once um. smartphones became so ubiquitous people. just didn't need it anymore your phone. is automatically communicating with your. um server the time server for your phone. company nope in 2009 they actually. started to see an increase in calls so. now people call more than they did in. the early 2000s today if you tell me. movie phone is still around I'm going to. just quit my job and do nothing but call.

those numbers all day you remember when. Kramer figured out that yeah or no did. did people think he had the movie phone. number so he started being the movie. phone person yeah I think that's what. happened and when he didn't know the. answers like they would be punching in. the numbers he would say why don't you. just tell me the movie that's right oh. God that was good so classic rated R oh. man I watched the puffy pirate shirt. episode the other day and it was and it.

still holds up yeah uh all right so we. promised talk of GPS I didn't have time. to dig into what you sent so if you've. uh got it together enough can you. explain briefly how GPS works yeah so. you mentioned that um some atomic clocks. can be fit on microchips now um and you. can find those microchips aboard. satellites that orbit space and we have. satellites that are dedicated to GPS. global positioning system system right. mhm I actually found this I got to give.

a shout out to arpa sarar who is just. some random person on Kora who uh we. hope got it right yeah if as as long as. they are not so masterful at at Ma. mashing facts up and into you know into. lies essentially but just covering it up. perfectly I'm pretty sure this guy got. it right essentially what they do is. you're if you're um like say you're. using ways or something which I do use. shout out to ways I love it. um it has a a a onboard GPS receiver.

somewhere I don't know if it's in the. waist server or something like that. maybe it's using your phones it's. probably using your phone and what it's. doing is it's receiving a signal from. the GPS satellite saying here's a signal. of some GPS info but also here's a. timestamp that came from my um my own. atomic clocks that I have on board this. satellite right and so your GPS receiver. gets it calculates how. the using the speed of light as part of. the formula how long it took for you to.

get that and then it does it again with. another satellite and another satellite. usually two or three and based on all of. the differences between how long it took. for those satellites to send you that. information it can tell you within I. think 10t or 10 meters I think um. exactly where you are on planet Earth. because it triangulates your your. location and that's all thanks to atomic. clocks it wouldn't be possible to do. that without atomic clocks yeah so I.

mean if you're if you're geocaching next. time you get that Santana. record out of the. geoc thank an atomic clock thank 133. yep thank the good people of. Maine and uh North or South Dakota one I. think it's South. Dakota uh was that a call back to like a. 2009. episode uh is that what we said you. could in the Geocache things man Chuck.

for a little while I think apparently. for a little while some people were. stuff you should know listeners were. putting Santana tapes and CDs that's. awesome in Gees but I'm sure that's run. its course or maybe not who knows I'll. bet there's some retro geocachers that. are like I got the Santana thing going. on yeah I think I saying geocaches. that's not work I've heard people say. that before although maybe it was you. from the episode. 2009 some dummy say it yeah what else. can you do with this stuff Chuck uh I.

mean I think that's a pretty good. summation well let me add let me add one. more thing you it's been used in physics. experiments too it's vital in physics. experiments because you're tracking like. say the decay of particles in atom. Smashers and that happens so fast that. you couldn't do it without atomic clocks. because they're tracking things in the. billionths of a second right mhm pretty. good stuff it's also been used more than. once to prove Einstein's theory of. relativity that there's gravitational. time dilation depending on the the.

effects of gravity on you yeah and how. fast you're traveling uh as in relation. to the speed of. light time's either going to move faster. or slower for you and so people have. taken atomic clocks and put them at. different um elevations uh there was a. very not even by much no I think 30 cm. for one um experiment and It produced. differences in time time dilation but. there was a really famous experiment. called the halfly keing um experiment. where in 1971 where they put some atomic.

clocks on airliners and just flew around. the world and then compared them when. they got back to the clocks back on. Earth and there was a clear distinction. between time it's very very slight but. it's enough to to prove that yes. Einstein's theory of gravitational time. dilation is correct yeah like that old. thing uh that you will age faster living. in the mountains then at sea level yeah. that Old Chestnut it is true but uh I. think what they found out was uh if you. live in the mountains it'd be about 90.

billionth of a second yeah less life. over a 79e lifetime so everybody's like. why bother my bother even telling us. that exactly uh there's one other thing. too so we mentioned um oh we didn't. mention I'm sorry I left this out those. GPS atomic clocks that they have on. board very very precise they still get. updates twice a day from back here on. Earth from those International. timekeepers yeah uh just to make sure.

that the the the the frequency drift. hasn't taken over too much it just. updates them right you can't do that the. further you get out from space I mean. these satellites are only tens or dozens. of miles above us right um as we get. further and further out into space it. becomes harder and harder to communicate. with Earth and to get like updates about. what time it it is so they're looking to. build Ultra precise um clocks that can. go out in space on board spacecrafts.

that can that can keep their own time. they don't need any updating from back. here on Earth they're going to lose so. little time over such a a long period of. time that they will essentially stay. calibrated to the time back on Earth for. incredibly long periods of time through. incredibly long distances out into space. why haven't they done that yet that was. my sort of question harder they they. have NASA launched the deep space atomic. clock in 2019 which is like a test um.

that I apparently is going very well oh. okay I was about to say why don't they. just uh throw one of those puppies. aboard the spacecraft but they but they. did um and they they're using mercury. ions instead of cesium atoms or aronium. look even better right it it is because. so one of the things these atoms when. you have them in like a cloud chamber or. whatever they can rub up basically. against the sides of the chamber and. it's going to mess with them a little. bit it's going to mess with your. measurement some um with a ion you can.

keep it trapped in an electromagnetic. field it's not going to mess with. anything it's not going to rub up. against anything and so that's how uh it. it's uh it stays so reliable how it's. your your measurements are going to stay. reliable for a very long time because. they're not interacting with you know. they're not bumping up against anything. yeah they're not Slam Dancing they're uh. they're doing the Billy Idol they're. dancing with theirselves speaking of. Slam Dancing I went to Circle Jerks and. descend. um last week and it was amazing and.

there were people there was a there was. a pit for sure I hav seen one of those. in a long time and did you look down and. Yumi was body serpent across the crowd. no but she was into it she was she was. there for The Descendants I was there. for the Circle Jerks but both shows were. were very good and um a fan came up and. said hi at the show I think I saw that. uh an email or something yeah yeah she. emailed was like I'm sorry if it was. like awkward or weird and I was like it. wasn't awkward or weird at all yeah I'm. sure it was wonderful but it was a very. good show and uh if you have a chance to.

see descendants and Circle Jerks and you. like Punk go see it cuz it's awesome. it's very good still at it I love it. yeah if you want to know anything more. about atomic clocks uh you can find a. whole Rabbit Hole to go down see if you. can escape Madness yourself uh and in. the meantime it's time for listener. mail uh this is one that we've tried to. get on recently it's another Peanuts one. but this is a stand out uh Hey guys. Charles Schultz was a huge part of my.

childhood though I never never met the. man um he spent a short amount of time. living in Colorado Springs early in his. career while living there he painted a. mural on the nursery room in the house. have that had many early depictions of. the Peanuts characters uh years later. long after he moved out my grandparents. Stan and Polly uh trbn bought the house. over the years they heard rumors from. Neighbors that Schultz had lived there. and painted a wall by this point the. wall had been painted over several times. my grandma was an amateur painter knew a.

thing or two about paint so after lots. of deliberating and researching she. decided to try and remove the layers of. paint over the mural bit by bit using. cotton swabs way to go man I love poly. trb for doing this cuz it would have. been lost to time yeah uh the wall and. all the characters were revealed uh many. of my childhood memories involved that. wall my parents my grandparents sorry. would even give free tours of the wall. to anyone interested and this gets so. great uh when Mr Schultz passed away my.

grandparents reached out to the family. offered to donate the wall to be a part. of the Schultz Museum so the estate. coordinated to have that wall literally. cut from the house loaded onto a truck. and shipped to California I will never. forget that cold rainy fall day in. Colorado was around 9 or 10 years old uh. the Schultz family treated my. grandparents like cherish friends for. years after that and even flew them out. first class to be there for for the. opening of the museum uh Mr Schultz was. a wonderful man had an amazing family.

and made the world a better place and. that is from Mike De Young and I saw. pictures and it was it's really pretty. unbelievable you can Google this wall. and look it up and I can't imagine the. effort that uh his his granny. trbn Nana trbn Nana trbn put forth to. tediously uh meticulously expose that. great work of art also Chuck she was. researching this at a time where you had. to like go to the library to find stuff.

like this out and they were ruin yeah oh. easily it could have been like that. monkey Jesus art restoration. thing remember that uh-huh okay uh and I. also want to point out that the Schultz. Museum flew them out first class back. when first class actually meant. something too oh burn so uh yeah there. it is the most triumphant greatest. peanuts email we received from that. episode we got a lot of good ones but. Mike D young took the cake so thanks for.

telling us all that Mike and hats off to. Granny Nana Trav and the the whole. family and the Schultz Museum that was. pretty cool stuff if you want to get in. touch with us like Mike did we'd love to. hear from you via email at stuff podcast. iheartradio.com. stuff you should know is a production of. iHeart radio for more podcasts ihart. radio visit the iHeart Radio app Apple. podcasts or wherever you listen to your. favorite shows.