The Aether Clock OC 020, hailed as the world’s most accurate timepiece, was launched for sale in Japan on Wednesday at a price of $3.3 million.
Developed by Kyoto-based Shimadzu Corp, this strontium optical lattice clock boasts such extraordinary accuracy that it would take 10 billion years for it to drift by a single second. It is 100 times more precise than the widely used caesium atomic clock, the current global standard for defining seconds.
Despite standing just one metre tall and occupying 250 litres in volume, the Aether Clock is compact enough for field research and scientific applications. Shimadzu aims to sell 10 units over the next three years, with expectations that this cutting-edge technology will significantly contribute to tectonic activity studies and other advanced research fields.
Previously, similar optical lattice clocks have been deployed at Tokyo Skytree to test Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which suggests that time slows down in areas with stronger gravitational fields.
