Last week, time stood still momentarily when strong winds caused a short power outage, impacting the world’s most precise clocks.
A power outage caused by strong winds last week resulted in a temporary halt to the world's most precise clocks, leading to a slight deviation of 5 microseconds, an amount imperceptible to humans but significant for ultra-precise devices. Experts explained that the impact was very limited, as other standard clocks continued to operate normally, while these clocks serve as the primary reference for timing in various fields, from mobile phones to space technology.
A spokesperson for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado, USA, stated that the generator responsible for operating the federal atomic clocks malfunctioned due to the storm, causing a temporary delay, and the issue was quickly corrected thanks to the operation of backup systems.
The ultra-precise atomic clocks use complex devices including lasers and microwave emitters to extract time signals from cesium atoms, and are so accurate that the potential error after 100 million years is less than one second. Most electronic devices, including mobile phones, rely on these clocks for precise synchronization, where deviations in online services often reach only a fraction of a thousandth of a second.
The most important precision timing centers also exist in Fort Collins and Gaithersburg, ensuring the reliability of the system, which is essential for scientific research, communications, critical infrastructure, GPS systems, financial transactions, and email.
Rebecca Jacobson from NIST confirmed that the incident was very minor thanks to the distributed design of the clock and server system, which ensures the continued accuracy of official timing even in the event of temporary faults.
