Physicists have created atomic clocks so precise that they can measure deformations in spacetime itself, according to new research.
We don’t all experience time passing equally—time passes more slowly closer to something massive’s gravitational pull, as famously theorized by Albert Einstein. And since gravity is typically interpreted as the way mass warps space itself, that means a precise-enough atomic clock could serve as a scientific tool for measuring how objects change the shape of their surrounding space.
“We’ve reported measurements of two clocks that in principle exceed our ability to account for [this effect] across the surface of the Earth,” Andrew Ludlow, physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, told Gizmodo.
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