Clocks with Atomic Clock technology, whether resident in clocks, watches, smartphones or pdas, gps devices, or a myriad of other applications have brought the science of timekeeping to a level unprecendented even by recent modern day expectations. Atomic Clocks were probably never even imagined by such timepiece inventors and historians and theorists such as John Harrison, Sir William Congreve, Leonardo DaVinci, Galileo, Dent, Breguet, not to mention more recent practictioners as E Howard, Japy Freres and Samuel Marti, and in the most recent years, companies including Howard Miller Clocks, Seth Thomas Clocks, Bulova Clocks, Hermle Clocks, and even in the lower-end of the price spectrum models such as Casio, wih Companies like E. Howard, Junghans, Bulova and Accutron lending their brand names to much higher priced models.
Atomic Time is defined in terms of one revolution of an electron in the ground state orbit of the hydrogen atom. The atomic cesium fountain atomic clock was developed and is operated at the NIST laboratories in Boulder, Colorado. It is theorized that if these Atomic Clocks were running continuously, the latest mercury-driven version of the NIST Atomic Clock would neither lose or gain a second in the next 70 million YEARS! (anyone want to make a bet? :)). It is these signals which are transmitted to the clocks purchased by consumers, businesses, and other organizations, and manufactured by companies such as Howard Miller Clocks and Seth Thomas Clocks.
With some unanticipated USA government legislative changes regarding daylight savings time, this past year posed a problem as Daylight Savings Time was pushed weeks ahead without much advance notice, to clock manufacturers included. The clock manufacturers seem for the most part to have worked out all these “kinks” in the very latest models. Never be late for a meeting! The best reason we keep hearing for buying Atomic Clocks – there is Agreement as to the actual moment that “work” quitting time actualy occurs, which brings peace and transquility to the workforce.
