Ever since Daniel Kehlmann's thrilling novel “Measuring the World”, even laypeople like us have understood the critical role of precise timekeeping. Now, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has achieved a groundbreaking leap in time measurement! The new laser clock developed by the DLR Institute for Quantum Technologies has achieved world-leading accuracy: it will only lose or gain one second in 30 million years! We can certainly live with that, even while waiting for public transport services that may not always be quite as reliable.

This innovation opens up entirely new possibilities for satellite navigation and global time standards. The laser clock, with its unparalleled precision, is set to be tested aboard the International Space Station (ISS) starting in 2027.

For more details and background information
German Aerospace Center (DLR)

Book recommendations in this context

Show larger version of image

Close

Daniel Kehlmann: Measuring the World: A Novel

Late in the 18th century, two Germans set out to measure the world: the adventurous naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who traverses jungles, sails down the Orinoco River, tastes poisons, climbs the highest mountain known to man, counts head lice, and explores and measures every cave and hill he comes across. The other, the reclusive and barely socialized mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, can prove that space is curved without leaving his home. These two polar opposites finally meet in Berlin in 1828, and are immediately drawn into the turmoil of the post-Napoleonic world.

At the Vancouver Public Library

Show larger version of image

Close

Wolfgang Blum: Die Erfindung der Zeit

Wolfgang Blum nimmt den Leser mit auf eine Zeitreise von den Anfängen der Zeitmessung bis heute. Er schildert bedeutende Entdeckungen und die brillanten Köpfe dahinter, beleuchtet sowohl technische Errungenschaften wie Kalender und Uhren als auch psychologische Aspekte des Zeitempfindens.

Wolfgang Blum, Jahrgang 1959, promovierter Mathematiker und ehemaliger Dozent für Mathematische Statistik an der Universität Erlangen, arbeitet heute als freier Journalist für Medien wie DIE ZEIT, Süddeutsche, GEO und Spektrum der Wissenschaft. Er wurde 1997 mit dem Römpp-Preis und 2010 mit dem Journalistenpreis der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung ausgezeichnet.