Why is it impossible to build an hundred percent accurate clock?

Question

You can try answering this if you might, but I personally have no clue as how this could ever be done.

Nevertheless, here is something for you to wonder about:

'Tow next-generation clocks have been battling it out to be the world's most accurate clock – to within a second every billion years, compared with today's standard of a second in 80 million years. A clock based on the vibrating ions of an aluminum atom is now gaining on one based on a mercury atom after a year-long test but both could be improved, US scientists say. They are each ten times more accurate than the standard cesium-atom clock.'

www.metro.co.uk

Answer 1

That's great to hear! I just want to add something more:



As the Sun moves through the sky we can clearly see the passing time. Until 1967 the movement of the Sun was our most accurate way of measuring time.



No clock keeps perfect time. For most of history clocks were set by the Sun and stars. Since 1967 the world's time has been set by the atomic clocks. Atomic clocks are accurate to 0.0001 sec. in 1000 years. If a caesium atomic clock ran for six million years it would nt gain or lose a second. The most accurate clock is the American NIST-7 atomic clock.



The Atomic clock on the International Space Station is hundred of times more accurate than clocks on earth, because it is not affected by gravity. Atomic clocks work because caesium atomes vibrate exactly 9,192,631,770 times a second.



With your added information on time accuracy i think this is something to follow up. Thanks for the latest information. Have a great day!

Answer 2

There are two ways of answering this.



Firstly, re the passage you quoted: it's practically impossible to build something with zero measurement error: that is, when you're calibrating your clock, you have to measure its time intervals and compare them with the desired interval. However the limits of accuracy of measurement depend on the technology then available to do the measuring. As this improves, then what used to be calibrated as well as it could be (ie no measurable error) will now show some measurable error.



Secondly, our definition of time is somewhat vague, because it depends on the relative velocities (and to a lesser extent the positions) of the clock and its observer. This is a result of Einstein's Relativity, which they've proved experimentally: take two highly accurate clocks, synchonise them, then send one up into space to do a few high-speed orbits of the planet. When the clock came back down and the two were compared, the two were out of sync - by exactly the amount predicted by Relativity. This means a clock could only be 100% accurate if its observer sat permanently looking at the clock, never moving. Not very useful.

Answer 3

Even if we disregard the relativity of time (the fact that, for instance, an earth-based clock could never keep track of the time of an astronaut speeding through space), a clock cannot even *theoretically* be a hundred percent accurate.



100% is actually 100.00000...%



A completely accurate clock would have to be able to measure *exact* units of time. For instance, exact seconds. One second is actually 1.00000... seconds.



This would mean the clock would have to be accurate to an infinity of decimals. There is, however, no such thing as "an infinity of decimals", as infinity is not a number.



From this it follows there is not even such a thing as an exact unit of time (or any other exact unit).

Answer 4

the question that i have, is how do they measure or compare its accuracy...



use another clock that is inaccurate.



International second

Under the International System of Units, the second is currently defined as 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 caesium-133 atom.[1] This definition refers to a caesium atom at rest at a temperature of 0 K (absolute zero). The ground state is defined at zero magnetic field. The second thus defined is equivalent to the ephemeris second, which was based on astronomical measurements. (See History below.) The international standard symbol for a second is s (see ISO 31-1)

Answer 5

If theres already that clock that is 1 second in 80 million years wrong what is the point in trying to make better ones, i think thats pretty accurate to me. Its not like in 80 million years someone is gonna say "oh no my 80 million year old clock is 1 second wrong"

Answer 6

sure certainly, each and all of the previous motives suggested are maximum in all probability the main individuals. i will 2nd and tack slightly on the the blasted Einstein! advice. without going into the mathematics, relativity will reason issues whilst evaluating any time protecting gadget to the different. products in diverse inertial frames observing a reasonably diverse "2nd" than one yet another for particular relativity. accepted relativity makes that even worse, once you start to comprehend that gravitational fields reason an identical "working sluggish" consequence. in case you place one a hundred% aaccurate clock on the suggestions-blowing of a tower, and yet another on the backside of a tower, they'll disagree after a mutually as. seek "Pound-Rebka test" - fairly exciting. :( unhappy face for watchmakers everywhere.

Answer 7

Because accuracy can't be absolutely defined.

It's dependent on the context, subject and object.

(In physics it's dependent on the observer and the light-distance to the clock).

Answer 8

THE PERPETUAL MOTION OF THE EARTH CREATE CURRENTS OF MAGNETISM THAT ARE CONSTANTLY CHANGING,therefore the 100%clock will never exist,as time is changing at a different rate,whereas magnetism is never constant.

Answer 9

"Treat Time with the contempt it deserves"



- Sir Compton MacKenzie

Answer 10

As Einstein said, time is relative.

Answer 11

time is man made

Answer 12

Time is inaccurate.

Answer 13

we just don't have the TIME for it

Answer 14

because we want to, we need to control our environment, why, because we can. I agree, stupid idea, oh, well.

Answer 15

Time is an illusion.



And i think that alone can explain all.