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The Fastest Clock in the World

blog.makezine.com — How fast is the fastest clock in the world? Well, this one measures time to a millionth of a second.

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  • HafizD, on 06/18/2008, -2/+39Cool. But what's the point for a regular person?
    • ThankTheCheese, on 06/18/2008, -1/+21To get to front page on Digg?
    • feanix, on 06/18/2008, -1/+14GOOD POINT. Also, let's scrap all that pointless space exploration and make more episodes of Lost.
      • dpcamp, on 06/18/2008, -0/+5YES! finally someone is speaking my language!
    • quidpro, on 06/18/2008, -0/+2Um...yeah. You should post that comment regularly over at Make. Go ahead and post it at Craft and Etsy too, for good measure.
    • zomgwaffles, on 06/18/2008, -0/+4So you can tell your girlfriend, "What do you mean 5 minutes? I lasted at least 5 minutes and 30 millionths of a second"
    • paradexes, on 06/18/2008, -1/+2Wow dyslexia kicked in big time. I read Clock without the L. I was like WTF? But glad I just misread it.
  • PL3NTY, on 06/18/2008, -13/+3I can name all 52 states in a second...
    • bosssmiley, on 06/18/2008, -0/+14Fifty-two states you say? That's quite an achievement.
    • rickishomer, on 06/18/2008, -0/+6..."But Petah, that was just a loud yelping noise."
    • Marumekomu, on 06/18/2008, -1/+4The inaccuracy and impossibility, respectively, of the parts of your comment, have BLOWN my mind. They've blown it. It's blown. Poof, gone.
    • mal1964, on 06/18/2008, -4/+2I doubt it but at least you remembered Hawaii and Alaska.
    • Fritoebola, on 06/18/2008, -1/+0Make a video and post it. that would clear doubts.
  • GordonClass, on 06/18/2008, -6/+21Thats a millionth of a second I'll never get back.
  • awtripp, on 06/18/2008, -1/+22it's all relative.
  • audaii, on 06/18/2008, -15/+0I can name all 52 states in a second... :d
    http://dj4ar.net
  • noahgelman, on 06/18/2008, -1/+83"The fastest clock in the world" kinda sounds like an oxymoron
    • databyss, on 06/18/2008, -0/+5I just threw my clock out the window... it was moving much faster than this.
      • breadfred, on 06/18/2008, -1/+1YELP! Next time make sure no-one is passing before you throw your clock out of the window.
      • rompom7, on 06/18/2008, -0/+4Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
  • tama00, on 06/18/2008, -4/+26that was kinda lame.

    unless you synchronise it to those super clocks in London what's the point? I mean sure it can display that many numbers but there not accurate to the actual time! Its like me selling you a chocolate bar for $1.30324329283223892384 in cash, the rest of the numbers dont do anything!
    • furbyboy, on 06/18/2008, -0/+4There are a number of uses for a clock such as this, i.e. measuring fluctuations in time caused by gravity
  • Jonno549, on 06/18/2008, -6/+3that's awesome, I want one
  • RubineBoy, on 06/18/2008, -0/+57Hey, that reminds me of the counter on the gas pump!
  • dacrazydude, on 06/18/2008, -0/+39I don't think it's the "fastest" clock in the world....
    • blackinthmiddle, on 06/18/2008, -6/+4What are you talking about? It's indeed the fastest clock in the world...except for it being a stopwatch and not a clock...well and the fact that it's not "fast" but merely has higher resolution. Yep, fastest clock!
    • smrekar, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1I agree, it may be the most accurate. I was expecting to see a clock that was off by days or something, maybe 6 hrs? i dont know how fast a clock can be before it makes no difference.
    • colto, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1If it just so happened to be located on the fastest object on earth (or at least the fastest object with an accurate clock on board) then I guess it technically could due to relativity.
      /I feel nerdy
  • TwolfJB, on 06/18/2008, -1/+67by fastest don't you mean most accurate, cause all clocks work at the same speed, its just depends on the accuracy of them
    • Jwoey, on 06/18/2008, -0/+12Truly, most clocks are just as accurate, they just aren't as *precise*
      • Owwmykneecap, on 06/18/2008, -0/+3No accurate means close to the true value, even if values are a little away from each other.

        Precise means all values given are close to each other, it does not mean that the are close to the true answer.

        That is why you want a machine that is both precise and accurate.
        • Jwoey, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1I never said precision implied accuracy. They're different, just like you said.
  • Parkeway, on 06/18/2008, -0/+7x.xxxx99 TWICE!!
    Either this guy has incredible luck or he has the fastest reaction time in the history of man...
    • Darmichar, on 06/18/2008, -0/+6That or he's pushing the x.xxxx99 button.
    • kmartshopper, on 06/18/2008, -1/+8The chance of hitting the same two ending numbers twice really isn't that bad.

      Now as for ending in 99, that gets a little more tricky but it's still more likely than you ever getting laid.
    • TheStrongForce, on 06/18/2008, -1/+1you have 1/100 of getting a number ending in 99, 1/10000 of twice in a row.
      • Jwoey, on 06/18/2008, -0/+3That's true, but it would've been pointed out if it ended in .34 2x in a row, too.

        There's a 1/10000 chance of it landing on any *given* number twice in a row, but landing on the same number 2x in a row is just 1/100.
  • karmabandit, on 06/18/2008, -0/+36There are atomic clocks that are at least 1000 times faster than this. The NIST standard in 2000 had accuracy to 0.1ns, for example. This clock is only accurate to a microsecond, which is horrible by comparison. Light travels about 1/5th of a mile in a microsecond, so if this were the fastest clock in the world, then your GPS accuracy would be only about 1/5 of a mile (and that would be what the military used, civilians would probably be even worse.) So, let's all be glad this isn't the fastest.
    • rockefeller2, on 06/18/2008, -2/+3I don't understand the relationship between the clock, speed of light, and GPS. Can you ellaborate? Thanks.
      • chaon93, on 06/18/2008, -0/+4a GPS satellite uses ping time in order to triangulate your position, they need incredible timing accuracy in order to approximate your distance from them by means of radio transmission (remember electromagnetic waves also travel at the speed of light)
      • bazwilliams, on 06/18/2008, -0/+5Each GPS satellite is a highly accurate atomic clock and they continually broadcast this time, GPS receivers receive this time from multiple sources and by some clever maths can work out how far it is away from each satellite (this is where speed of light comes in) and then it triangulates using these different distances to give you an accurate location on the planet.
        • aflaks, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1im a very big fan of clever maths, rock on!
    • Bleue, on 06/18/2008, -1/+2In fact most computers these days can calculate to a millionth of a second with pretty good accuracy as a one gigahertz machine changes state 1 million times a second, and the duration of each state is equivalent enough that it is very possible to use it to measure time. A 3 Ghz machine is of course three times as accurate which means that it could measure time to within 1/3rd of a millionth of a second. Which has little practical use but puts this clock to shame.

      • hogar983, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1Yes, you can get accuracy in the range of nanoseconds on modern cpu-s using the assembler instruction RDTSC.
  • borez, on 06/18/2008, -0/+28That title makes absolutely no sense wot-so-ever.
  • Hindu_Wardrobe, on 06/18/2008, -0/+13I was thinking "fastest" as in a clock whose time is most inaccurately ahead. You know. Wrong.
    • B3000, on 06/18/2008, -0/+5Well, I think that would be my clock. I have it set 100 years ahead, down to the minute.
      • acceleration, on 06/18/2008, -0/+3Did you take leap years into account, though?
  • prrudman, on 06/18/2008, -1/+11How do they know it is accurate? They may just have a stop watch and make up the rest of the number...
  • bombula, on 06/18/2008, -8/+3Stupid. There are faster clocks in every personal computer. It's a 'clock' that controls how many GHz your CPU runs at: GHz = _billions_ of cycles per second. That's why 'overclocking' can make your CPU run faster.

    So the new military supercomputer in the news that does 1 petaflops (Floating Point Operations) per second? That's 1 _quadrillion_ cycles per second.

    So, a clock that measures mere millionths of a second? Pathetic.
    • cair0, on 06/18/2008, -0/+7This is one of those cases where you can't count floating point operations, you have to fall back on the old standard of clock speed. A clock is only a clock if it measures time accurately. I think the upper limit for real microprocessors has been around 5-6 GHz, which would give you mostly accurate sub-nanosecond timings, depending on the quality of the baseline frequency.

      In any case, it will count much more precisely than counting operations on a 1 petaflop massively parallel computer where the speed of operation has little to do with its clock speed.
  • loopyloopy, on 06/18/2008, -0/+17buried for inaccuracy :)
  • dc5mike, on 06/18/2008, -0/+13Well, the fastest clock in the world would be a clock attached to the fasted moving object in the world. No?
  • kmartshopper, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1So much for fast, sure took a long time for that thing to stop when they hit the button (~ a second).
  • evildaz, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1Surely the dashboard in the cockpit of SS Discovery has the worlds fastest clock......
    • LeRenard, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1Depends on if you consider that the "world". If you do, I'd argue that the clock aboard Helios 2 reached 150,000 mph and is still in orbit around the sun.
  • MalevolentDust, on 06/18/2008, -0/+0Just what I need...a clock that lets me fast-forward through all those long tedious meetings in a fraction of the time it used to take. Why else would you need a clock that goes really fast?
  • notman, on 06/18/2008, -0/+4So how did they time it if it's the fastest clock?
  • Sillywombat, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1In computers, i can understand, but what is the point of having a clock that fast? You cant see the clock change because of the speed, and you can hardly push the botton as fast as 1/100th of a second fast.
  • insanebrain, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1wrong time, wrong place :)
  • SoundJudgment, on 06/18/2008, -1/+7That's 15.278408205866238392828451239 seconds of my life I will never get back.
  • rohit4381, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1Okay it is fast but is it accurate..
  • PDF84, on 06/18/2008, -0/+34Hey, my clock goes at a speed of 1second per second. Fast enough.
  • alanr19, on 06/18/2008, -2/+2I set my clock to 5 billions years in the future. Fast enough for ya?
  • SolidBones, on 06/18/2008, -0/+0In my head, "Fastest clock" translated to "Most devious bomb timer".
  • blueagave00, on 06/18/2008, -0/+23Big deal, my clock does a minute in 57 seconds.
    • KowGawd, on 06/18/2008, -1/+1Well, mine does it in 55 seconds.....so there!
      • aflaks, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1mine is 100% accurate exactly twice a day
  • oilcan, on 06/18/2008, -0/+0fastest clock? this does not strike me as the description of choice for the clock they are talking about here...
  • Metasquares, on 06/18/2008, -1/+1If this were the most precise clock, we would not have the concept of nanoseconds.
  • Just, on 06/18/2008, -1/+1Where can i buy it? who makes it ?
  • TheMightyDane, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1Most useless knowledge ever.
  • ertz, on 06/18/2008, -1/+7but time doesn't exist
  • baseman16, on 06/18/2008, -0/+0nevermind the clock in the story, how 'bout that DIY LED clock? Sweet!
  • xEn1gma, on 06/18/2008, -0/+0At least you'll never be late to work again ;)
    • ahtu, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1More like I'll just know how late I am more accurately
  • millenniumjules, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1I like clocks..
  • Nosferotu, on 06/18/2008, -0/+4Whoopty *****' doo. Still no cure for cancer out there, eh?
  • B3000, on 06/18/2008, -1/+3Ok, so everyone has already pointed out the fallacy of calling it "the fastest clock", what's left for me? Do I ask if it has a radio? If it's a pain in the ass to program the alarm? How you re-set it correctly after the power goes out? *****. That's what I get for showing up late.
  • zippy757, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1My Windows clock in the toolbar is accurate to the hour.
    • ahtu, on 06/18/2008, -0/+0Mine is to the century. showing 2000 now
      • ukblacknight, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1Change it to 12hr from 24hr then. That will make it more accurate.
  • LeRenard, on 06/18/2008, -0/+3Even if they calibrated it to be perfectly accurate, at a millionth of a second displayed, just walking across the room with it would be enough to require a recalibration for time dilation.
    • specialK16, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1But it would be great to actually experiment with time dilation, a concept that I won't comprehend until I actually see it.
  • digitronix, on 06/18/2008, -0/+2If only people had a reaction time of a millionth of a second, this clock would be more useful.
    • michael43, on 06/19/2008, -2/+1It times how long it takes diggers to jack off to obama's picture.
  • FirstDivision, on 06/18/2008, -0/+0Buried is inaccurate, the fastest clock in the world sits on my desk at work; it reads 5:00PM way before anyone else's.
  • NRay7882, on 06/18/2008, -2/+1But will it blend?
  • furbyboy, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1Surely a clock like this would not measure a second, but redefine it to a greater degree than was previously possible, since one second is simply an arbitrary measurement of time
  • evolutionium, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1the most stupid thing I've heard today gotta be this, its not "teh fastest clock in world" its the most accurate digital stopwatch!!!
  • scndkss, on 06/18/2008, -0/+0Wow... awesome. An all-in-one clock and a random number generator.
  • socketman, on 06/18/2008, -0/+31.Create super fast clock
    2. Know what time it is down to the millionth of a second
    3. ?
    4. Profit
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