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Quicksilver Clock Could 'Revolutionize' Physics

Eric Bland, Discovery News

Researchers expect the new clock will lose only a fraction of a second over 14 billion years -- that's as long as the universe has existed.

While it will take several weeks to test the new mercury-based clock, the researchers expect it to be more accurate by several magnitudes than other kinds of clocks because it measures millions of atoms simultaneously, instead of a single ion.

In 2005 the researchers reported they had developed a similar clock, made out of strontium. Subsequent tests showed the clock was affected by a certain kind of radiation, known as blackbody radiation. Mercury is not affected by this radiation, so it makes for a more accurate clock.

Mercury is, however, affected by electromagnetism.

In physicists' equations, alpha refers to the strength of the electromagnetic force. For decades it was assumed that the value of alpha was unchangeable. But over the last decade a host of experiments in fields from astronomy to nuclear physics has shown that alpha may have changed.

If scientists find a difference between the alpha-sensitive mercury clock and the alpha-neutral strontium clock, it could usher in a new age of physics.

"Discovery of such variation would lead to a revolution in physics and cosmology," said Victor Flambaum, a physicist at the University of New South Wales in Australia and an expert in alpha measurements. "A new theory will be needed to extend present 'standard model,' including Einstein's general relativity."

But Flambaum cautions that any difference in alpha found by the clock will have to be verified by other experiments. Only time will tell.

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