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It's About Time—But Also Much More

DOC Guest Blog by JILA and University of Colorado Student Ben Bloom with JILA/NIST Fellow Jun Ye. JILA is a joint institute of NIST and the University of Colorado Boulder.

40° 0.435', -105° 16.116'—that's where I work. I know this because my smart phone says so. The same phone that woke me up in the morning, reminded me to give my dog his heartworm medication, and that I routinely use as a flashlight. But how does this small, everyday piece of technology know where I am? Sixty years ago when somebody set out to build atomic clocks, surely they had different goals in mind, something big and of a national scale you would think. Nobody could have imagined a handheld box for every citizen good for watching cat videos and also for advanced communications of all sorts. Read more>>

Released January 23, 2014, Updated February 3, 2023