JILA Atomic Clocks

JILA physicists have measured Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, or more specifically, the effect called time dilation, at the smallest scale ever, showing that two tiny atomic clocks, separated by just a millimeter or the width of a sharp pencil tip, tick at different rates.

The experiments are described in the NIST news feed and the Feb. 17 issue of Nature.

Photo credit: R Jacobson/NIST