{"id":124992,"date":"2024-08-06T19:41:12","date_gmt":"2024-08-06T14:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/?post_type=current-affairs&#038;p=124992"},"modified":"2024-08-08T16:03:35","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T10:33:35","slug":"from-sundials-to-atomic-clocks","status":"publish","type":"current-affairs","link":"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/current-affairs\/from-sundials-to-atomic-clocks","title":{"rendered":"From Sundials to Atomic Clocks: Evolution of Timekeeping Throughout History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Timekeeping as a practice has evolved through centuries from observing natural forces like the Sun, Moon, water etc <\/span><b>to progressing to measure atoms and their nuclei in the present time. The advent of advanced\u00a0 technology<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> entails the development of next generation devices ie. Nuclear Clocks.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Three Major Developments have been reported in building functional Nuclear Clocks:\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A laser to excite thorium-229 nuclei to a specific higher energy state<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A way to link a thorium-229 nuclear clock with an optical clock<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A precise estimate of the excitation energy. The nucleus\u2019s de-excitation emission has a frequency of 2,020 terahertz, alluding to an ultra-high precision.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\"><b>About Clocks<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Clocks are devices that measure the passage of time and display it.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Parts:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Modern versions of Clocks contain a <\/span><b>power source, resonator, and counter.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A clock<\/span><b> measures the amount of time that has passed by tracking something that happens in repeating fashion, at a fixed frequency.<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Example:\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"3\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The<\/span><b> sundials <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of ancient times tell time by casting shadows of changing lengths against sunlight.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"3\"><b>Water Clock:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The water would slowly fill a vessel, with its levels at different times indicating how much time had passed.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul style=\"list-style-type: disc;\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"4\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The water clocks were fitted with additional water tanks, gear wheels, pulleys, and even attached musical instruments to the point where they were practically developing rudimentary analog computers.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"3\"><b>Modern Clocks:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They use <\/span><b>quartz crystal.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"vc_button\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pw.live\/batches\/upsc\/pw-only-ias?utm_source=seo+upsc+batch&#038;utm_medium=seo+upsc&#038;utm_campaign=seo&#038;utm_id=upsc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Enroll now for UPSC Online Classes<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\"><b>Modern Clocks: Evolution of Mechanical Clocks<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-125257 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/unnamed-56-66b49d42cecd9-1.webp\" alt=\"Atomic Clocks\" width=\"407\" height=\"1018\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/unnamed-56-66b49d42cecd9-1.webp 800w, https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/unnamed-56-66b49d42cecd9-1-120x300.webp 120w, https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/unnamed-56-66b49d42cecd9-1-410x1024.webp 410w, https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/unnamed-56-66b49d42cecd9-1-768x1920.webp 768w, https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/unnamed-56-66b49d42cecd9-1-614x1536.webp 614w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 407px) 100vw, 407px\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Invention of the Verge Escapement Mechanism: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was the first major revolution in timekeeping\u00a0 invented in the 1<\/span><b>3th century, paving the way for modern clocks <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">opening the door for the development of mechanical clocks.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Process: <\/b>T<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">he fundamental element here<\/span><b> was a gear that<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, through a combination of mechanical arrangements, could only move in fixed intervals.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Escape Wheel:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The first gear was called an escape wheel if it was circular.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Balance Wheel: A<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> second gear, called the balance wheel, was enmeshed with the first such that when the escape wheel moved forward one gear tooth at a time, the balance wheel would oscillate back and forth.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>This oscillation would drive the \u2018hands\u2019 of a clock on a clock <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">face as long as some force was applied on the balance wheel to keep it moving.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><b>Invention of Spring-Driven Clocks:<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Using Coiled Spring: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clockmakers developed and improved on the previous mechanical devices between the <\/span><b>15th and 18th centuries by replacing the suspended weight that applied the force on the balance wheel with a coiled spring.\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"3\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The balance spring would <\/span><b>return the balance wheel to its neutral position after every \u2018tick\u2019 motion before the \u2018tock\u2019 motion t<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">owards the other side. As a result, the clocks lost a few minutes a day versus a few hours a day before.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>New Mechanisms like the Fusee <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">were developed to ensure the spring always delivered a uniform force and does not become inaccurate as the spring unwound.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"3\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The idea to couple a balance spring with the balance wheel also led to the <\/span><b>advent of pocket watches<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Pendulum Clock: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Clock was invented in the<\/span><b> mid-17th century, by the Dutch inventor Christiaan Huygens.<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The clock also <\/span><b>used the escapement mechanism, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Huygens made an important contribution by working out a formula t<\/span><b>o convert the pendulum\u2019s swings to the amount of time passed.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>The Marine Chronometer:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It was developed in the <\/span><b>18th century in 1761 AD by a\u00a0 carpenter named John Harrison<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and delivered to the British government for its longitude prize.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Need: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For measuring time on a ship. A ship needs to accurately<\/span><b> know its latitude, longitude, and altitude<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for it to locate itself on the face of the earth.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Measuring the Longitude required\u00a0 an accurate clock onboard each vessel.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The Marine Chronometer featured mechanisms to ensure the clock\u2019s operation <\/span><b>wasn\u2019t affected by the ship\u2019s rocking, the force of gravity, and some temperature changes.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Electric Clocks:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 They were<\/span><b> developed in the 19th century whose energy source was a battery<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or an electric motor rather than suspended weights or springs, although the former and latter were attached to improve the effciency of existing designs.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\"><b>The 20th Century Clocks<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It heralded the development<\/span><b> of two important types of clocks ie. the Quartz clock and the Atomic clock <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">with a <\/span><b>similar fundamental setup ie. consisting of a power source, a resonator, and a counter.<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Quartz Clocks: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quartz clocks are inexpensive to make and easy to operate, and their invention led to watches and wall-clocks becoming very common from the mid-20th century.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Quartz Crystal: The resonator here is a quartz crystal. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The power source sends electrical signals to a quartz crystal, whose crystal structure oscillates <\/span><b>due to the piezoelectric effect.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>The signal\u2019s energy can be tuned to make the crystal oscillate at its resonant frequency, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">making it the resonator. The counter counts the number of periodic oscillations and converts them into seconds (depending on the crystal\u2019s period).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A digital display shows the counter\u2019s results.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><b>Atomic Clocks:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The<\/span><b> resonator here\u00a0 is a group of atoms of the same isotope and the power source is a laser.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The laser imparts a specific volume of <\/span><b>energy for the atom to jump from its low energy state to a specific higher energy state.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The atom releases radiation with a well-established frequency when it jumps back down.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Example:\u00a0 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The<\/span><b> Caesium atomic clock uses caesium-133 atoms as the resonator. These <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">atoms release<\/span><b> radiation of frequency 9,192,631,770 Hz<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> when they excite and\u00a0 de-excite.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The counter<\/span><b> records one second has passed<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> when it detects 9,192,631,770 full waves of the radiation.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><b>Time Standard:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Atomic clocks are distinguished by their resonator and each such clock is called a time standard.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Example:\u00a0 India\u2019s time standard is a caesium atomic clock at the National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which maintains the Indian Standard Time.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><b>Range: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Frequency\u00a0 emitted in a caesium atomic clock is <\/span><b>in the microwave range (gigahertz)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and the resulting clock<\/span><b> loses or gains a second only once in 20 million years or so.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"vc_button\"><a href=\"https:\/\/store.pw.live\/govt-entrance-exams\/upsc-books\/upsc-textbooks?utm_source=SEO&#038;utm_medium=PW+Live&#038;utm_campaign=UPSC+Textbooks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Check Out UPSC NCERT Textbooks From PW Store<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\"><b>Future Clocks<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Next -Generation Optical Clocks: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The radiation in the next-generation clocks is in the optical range (hundreds of terahertz).<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These devices<\/span><b> use strontium or ytterbium atoms as resonators<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and don\u2019t miss a second in more than 10 billion years.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Nuclear Clocks: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their resonators are the <\/span><b>nuclei of specific atoms rather than the whole atom. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Atomic clocks need to make sure the resonator atoms aren\u2019t affected by energy from other sources, like a stray electromagnetic field.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An atom\u2019s nucleus, however, is located well within each atom, surrounded by electrons, and thus could be a more stable resonator.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table style=\"width: 99.8331%;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 137.772%; 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The advent of advanced  technology entails the development of next generation devices ie. Nuclear Clocks <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"paper-wise":[2089],"subject":[2092],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/current-affairs\/124992"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/current-affairs"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/current-affairs"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124992"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/current-affairs\/124992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125266,"href":"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/current-affairs\/124992\/revisions\/125266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124992"},{"taxonomy":"paper-wise","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/paper-wise?post=124992"},{"taxonomy":"subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwonlyias.com\/stage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/subject?post=124992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}