Tweet
Spanish-English translation
Necessary to define how to measure time
There is a dispute among scientists to define what will govern the measurement of time. (Photo: File El Universal)
Saturday June 30, 2012
Notimex | The Universal
1:06
Specialists from around the world in astronomy , timing and geophysics divided even their arguments on whether the technique of measurement of time must be maintained by the combination of astronomical observations and timing with atomic clocks , or only with the latter .
Daniel Flores Gutierrez, Institute of Astronomy (IA) of the UNAM, said the conclave of 700 scientists, held in Geneva, Switzerland, became temporary, because in this year must meet a fraction of atomic time measurement instruments, because the Earth rotates more and more slowly and is disarticulated from the standard, ie, an "invisible gap" that requires intervention.
Failure to adjust that fraction, when scientific (atomic) and the astronomical start to decouple slowly until one day he came to see the sun in the night sky, although that would happen within thousands of years.
"The astronomical observation involves correcting a fraction of a second year. With the accumulation of these small parts it is determined that this year will make the amendment, but the full second," said
This is done, the researcher continued, based on astronomical observation, ie if there is any fault in atomic clocks for any reason or phenomenon, that searcheth the sky is essential to avoid losing precision.
He mentioned that an international agreement in 1970 dictates that were installed two standard times: one of them, UT1, which is based on the rotation of the Earth, and second, TUC, on atomic time.
The main task of the International Service of rotation of the Earth (International Earth Rotation Service), is to follow these two rules that do not differ more than 0.9 seconds, and when there is a need to add an extra second, give notice the international community.
According to the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO, for its acronym in English), this time the second will be added again at 23 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds UTC on 30 June 2012.
"The atomic clocks they do is measure the vibrations of oscillations of different chemical elements such as cesium, and thus record the split second through the frequency of this issue," he said.
The precision of atomic clocks is necessary, for example, to coordinate the control of space telescopes from different ground-based observatories, or to calibrate the GPS global positioning system, which calculates the distance from user to satellites by the time it takes signal to travel to them.
The traditional weather pattern is not atomic, but astronomical, marked by the period of rotation of the earth on its axis.