Sunday 18 October 2015

time - A question about atomic clocks


I have a rather simple question about atomic clocks. I have read that:



Microwave radiation with a frequency of exactly 9.192.631.770 cycles per second causes the outermost electron of cesium-133 atom to reverse its spin direction. An atomic clock uses this phenomenon to tune moicrowaves to this exact frequency. It then counts 1 second for each 9.192.631.770 cycles.




So does that mean that in an interval of 1 second the outermost electron of the cesium-133 atom changes its spin direction 9.192.631.770 times? And let 1 and 2, be the two possible directions of spin. Does one change mean a change from 1 to 2 , or a change 1 to 2 and back to 1?




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