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Now a flea can have a wristwatch.
Published on December 15, 2005 By singrdave In Physics

NIST researchers have demonstrated a minuscule atomic clock with inner workings about the size of a grain of rice and potential applications in atomically precise timekeeping in portable, battery-powered devices for secure wireless communications, more precise navigation, and other applications. The "physics package" of the clock, believed to be the smallest in the world, is about 1.5 millimeters on a side and about 4 millimeters tall, consumes less than 75 thousandths of a watt, and has a stability of about one part in 10 billion, equivalent to a clock that would neither gain nor lose more than a second in 300 years.
NIST researchers are also demonstrating the potential to fabricate and assemble the physics package using the low-cost, mass-production techniques used to make semiconductor devices, which should eventually lead to a complete atomic clock about 1 cubic centimeter in size (about the size of a pencil eraser) powered by a battery. Such miniature atomic clocks are not intended to compete for accuracy and stability with the world’s most accurate atomic clocks such as the NIST-F1 cesium fountain atomic clock, but could make dramatic improvements in the many consumer and military electronic devices that rely on stable and accurate timing for wireless communications, navigation, and other applications.

My mind is blown. That is a clock. An itty bitty clock. Amazing. Just think where we'll be in twenty years, or fifty.

Comments
on Jan 02, 2006
Well, since no comments are forthcoming, I will bump my own crap to the top.
Happy New Year JU!
on Jan 26, 2006
Now, wait a minnit"Itty-bitty".....oh....c-L-ock! Sorry, I thought this article was about me!

Seriously, though.....they keep on making things smaller and smaller. How much smaller do we need our phones and such to be, for example. It gets to the point where it's ridiculous.
Every time I hear about them making something smaller, I think about Ben Stiller's cell phone in "Zoolander".
on Jan 26, 2006
Holy crap... I got a nibble.

Every time I hear about them making something smaller, I think about Ben Stiller's cell phone in "Zoolander".

One of the three funny moments in an otherwise mind-numbing film. The other two? When the models have a gasoline fight, and when Derek complains that the school is too small - how will anyone fit inside?

Back OT, I guess it's like Jurassic Park. Everybody wondered if you could without wondering if you should.

But this time it's about relevancy and not that the clock is gonna strike out and eat someone. Duh.
on Jan 27, 2006
Seeing those grains of rice reminds me of the time I saw an exhibit of "art" (I use the term only to be accurate---"art" is what they said it was, at least) that included several examples of entire books of the Bible written on grains of rice. I mean, literally----Genesis was on a grain of rice. It was cool to consider, but the pragmatist in me kept asking "why"?
The cynical skeptic in me kept asking if anyone had ever looked closely enough at them to see if the entire book really was there. Sometimes we just have to ask ourselves "why"?