Most clocks simply have a built-in function that allows you to adjust what time they read without having to rely on the internal timekeeper. You don't stop the clock and wait, or speed up the oscillations to "catch up" (well, I suppose you could, but it would be INSANELY hard). Now daylight savings time is really something we impose on our clocks when you switch to DST, an hour of time doesn't really INSTANTANEOUSLY pass - we just set our clocks forward. In an atomic clock, it's the same - it just takes some fancy optics and electronics to convert the frequency of the light into a time signal that's slow enough for us to use it. In digital watches, it's simply electronics which count the number of oscillations of the crystal and divide by an appropriate number to get seconds, minutes, etc. In the grandfather clock, it's a system of gears that converts the pendulum period into appropriate speeds to move the second hand, minute hand, and hour hand. This thing that oscillates is the heart of the clock, and then for the rest of it, you just need some sort of device that counts the oscillations and converts a number of oscillations into a time that you can understand / recognize. For the atomic clock, it's atoms (usually cesium-133) which emit a very precise frequency of light when they fall from an excited state to a ground state. For most watches, it's a crystal that, when you apply power to it, vibrates very rapidly, with a very stable frequency. For big old grandfather clocks, it's a pendulum that swings back and forth with a very regular period (so that you can tell exactly how long it takes for one swing). Actually, let's start with how any clock works.īasically, a clock depends on something that repeats a pattern at a very regular rate. To answer this question, let's first think about how the atomic clock works. Judson Powers, B.S., Physics Grad Student, Cornell, Ithaca, NY This corresponds to the time zone containing Greenwich, England and is not modified by Daylight Savings Time. Because of this and time zone adjustments, reference times like those provided by atomic clocks are generally given in Greenwich Mean Time (alternately called Universal Coordinated Time or Zulu Time). Daylight Savings Time has no physical analogue, it's simply a seasonal change we make in the definition of what the numbers on a clock mean in terms of time.
However, those that do keep time (by measuring the amount of time that has passed since some established reference point) are not adjusted for Daylight Savings Time. They're most useful in measuring the amount of time that has elapsed in a laboratory. Most atomic clocks are actually not used to keep time the way a clock on the wall keeps time. How does the atomic clock change to daylight savings does stop and than catch up or does it go forward?
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