Recently, scientists have built a clock that is more precise than any existing international clock. The clock is 37 times more precise and is called the quantum atomic logic clock. A physicist named Chin-Wen Chou is building the clock.

Chin-Wen and his team are racing to build the atomic clock so that they can replace the current international clock that keeps the most accurate timing. The quantum-logic clock, which detects the energy state of a single aluminum ion, keeps time to within a second every 3.7 billion years. Although the clock is an interesting idea it has not been officially adopted yet as the clock that will replace the international standard. However, the physicist’s team has big plans for the clock.  The new timekeeper could one day improve GPS or detect the slowing of time predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Chou’s team is one of several racing to build an atomic clock that can replace the current international standard, the cesium fountain clock. The cesium clock loses one second every 100 million years. Chou’s is not the first quantum-logic clock, but his uses aluminum and magnesium ions, which makes it twice as precise as its predecessors that used aluminum and beryllium.