The atomic clock is the culmination of an obsession of mankind to tell the correct time. Before precision atomic clock employing nanosecond scales time are based on celestial bodies.
However, through the development of the atomic clock, has now realized that even the Earth's rotation does not measure is as accurate as the atomic clock time to lose or gain a fraction of a second per day.
Because of the need to have a small calendar on the basis of rotation of the Earth (astronomy and agriculture are two reasons) which is maintained by atomic clocks, but adjusted for any slowdown (or acceleration), the rotation of the Earth. This period is known as UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) as employees in all business and ensure world trade used simultaneously.
Network servers on a computer using the network time to synchronize with the UTC. Many people refer to these devices as atomic time server but the clock is not correct. Atomic clocks are very expensive and very sensitive parts and equipment not normally found in universities or the National Physical Laboratory.
Fortunately, the national physics laboratories such as NIST (National Institute of Standards and Time – USA) and NPL (National Physical Laboratory – UK) extend time signal their atomic clocks. Alternatively, the GPS network is also a good source of accurate time for each GPS satellite has its own board atomic clock.
The time server when the network receives an atomic clock and is distributed using a protocol such as NTP (Network Time Protocol) ensures the network is synchronized with the same time.
Because of network time servers are monitored by the atomic clocks can keep time with incredible accuracy without losing a second to hundreds or even thousands of years. This ensures that the network is secure and insensitive to timing errors on all machines have the same time.
Richard N Williams and Richard Hawkesford are technical authors and specialists in atomic clocks, telecommunications, NTP and network time synchronisation helping to develop dedicated NTP clocks. Please visit us for more information about an NTP server or other network time server solutions.
