Scientists: please explain this to a non-scientist. Thank you!
Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...
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This is a particular scheme involving ultraviolet photons emitted by nuclei (rather than atoms, molecules, or crystalline defects) which for technical reasons can be produced with a very well-defined energy, and thus a well-defined frequency.
More accurate metrology has a number of possible applications, including precision tests of general relativity and quantum electrodynamics, any deviation from which could lead to new physics.
Because the calendar year is 365.242198 days which is compensated by various leap day rules in the Gregorian calendar, and the bomb was dropped in the morning, it seems to me that August 5th was the actual anniversary of the event, not the 6th as the calendar would suggest.
However this is just a demonstration it needs to be very repeatable and the it needs to give strong signals so it could easier to use in other laboratories.
Nuclei embedded in a crystal also can have recoilless emission in some cases by the way, whereby the entire crystal recoils rather than the nucleus in question at least some of the time, but I'm not sure whether this is the goal here or important. This is known as the Mossbauer effect, and was used in a previous test of General Relativity namely the Pound-Rebka experiment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer
GPS satellites of course, also contain accurate time and frequency standards, which are necessary for their operation, and can be used I think, to obtain accurate timekeeping information on earth.
There have been of course, previous experiments to use accurate clocks for tests of General Relativity such as Gravity Probe A:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Probe_A
By the way "precision quartz watches" are available and have been for quite some time as well as well as watches which of course, set themselves using radio signals such as those provided by NIST or GPS, or using time obtained from cellular networks:
https://www.watchtime.com/featured/high-accuracy-quartz-guide-longines-vhp-breitling-bulova-citizen-chronomaster-omega-grand-seiko-9f/
There are a lot of very sophisticated analog watch mechanisms of course, but of course the Rolex designs are mechanically simpler but able to stay accurate and reliable under actual use conditions. Eisenhower owned one in fact, which was solid gold and given to him as a special gift,
https://www.bobswatches.com/rolex-blog/watch-review/presidents-dwight-d-eisenhowers-rolex.html
Mechanical watches can be adjusted when serviced to be highly accurate at the time of service, there are internal adjustments to zero out the drift.
There is a separate sidereal year of course, that governs the return of the Earth in its orbit relative to fixed stars, it is the actual orbital period, which differs by 20 minutes longer due to the procession of the equinoxes.
In terms of sidereal years of course, that would mean that the anniversary was indeed correct, of course.