[time-nuts] Atomic Watch.

Said Jackson saidjack at aol.com
Wed May 1 17:55:57 EDT 2013


That is incorrect. There is a good presentation online with lots of technical details. More details than you would find from other vendors.

Search for:

   Lutwak CSAC Stanford

There are no HAZMAT or ITAR restrictions on the CSAC contrary to what this mis-informed author claimed.

Bye,
Said

Sent From iPhone

On May 1, 2013, at 10:48, Michael Tharp <gxti at partiallystapled.com> wrote:

> On 5/1/2013 11:40, Sarah White wrote:
>> I tweeted the author of this article, trying to point out that (as I
>> understand) "radioactive decay" is not relevant in any way for cesium
>> frequency standard/reference thingies:
>> 
>> https://twitter.com/kuzetsa/status/329618223916011520
>> 
>> If someone more authoritative and/or experienced (or at least more
>> awake) wanted, please let me know if I was confused and such
> 
> Symmetricom doesn't go out of their way to say how the damn thing actually works, but it sure isn't radioactive decay. Decay is entirely unpredictable due to the nature of quantum mechanics and can only be described in statistical terms (averages and probabilities). But it's a very common misconception that I, too, once held. To most people, "atomic" means radioactive, fissioning, or fusioning.
> 
> This seems to be the technology being used, it looks similar in a broad sense to a Rb oscillator but without the microwave excitation:
> 
> http://tf.nist.gov/ofm/smallclock/CPT_clocks.html
> 
> CSAC has definitely been discussed here before but the threads my searches are turning up do not seem to investigate its theory of operation.
> 
> As for the article, The Register is not an outlet known for precise reporting. Take it as a journalistic liberty.
> 
> NB: Your tweet is not visible to me, so it's somewhat difficult to fact-check :-)
> 
> -- m. tharp
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