[time-nuts] Re: What everyday uses are there for accurate clocks?

[Dr. David Kirkby]

On Wed, 30 Nov 2022 at 02:01, Oz-in-DFW <lists at ozindfw.net> wrote:

> On 11/29/2022 5:36 PM, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:

Yes, but for the vast majority of the population, highly accurate current
measurements or length measurements are not important.

Depends on how you scope the problem.  They are essential to everyday life
if you look at the items in the average first world household.

I understood the original question was essentially "why is this relevant"
not how do I use this directly?

Low power electronics often requires 9 orders of magnitude of current
measurements.  The individuals holding a cellphone may not make those
measurements, but they rely on them every day.

Modern mechanical parts routinely rely on accuracy of a few tens of
microns. Again, not necessarily a measurement that someone is likely to
make, but any modern item relies heavily on that level of A
Rich

Thank you. That’s a very good answer. It encapsulates why accurate
measurements are needed for everyday use.

However, the relative uncertainty of time/frequency measurements is orders
of magnitudes lower than those of distance, temperature, current,
luminosity etc. So improvements in frequency standards will not improve our
ability to measure voltage, distance, temperature etc. I checked the NPL
website but could not see a figure for their relative uncertainty on
voltage measurements, but I know it will be orders of magnitude higher than
frequency. Even the best multimeters are “only” 8.5 digits, but frequency
counters have 12 digits.

Dave
-- 
Dr. David Kirkby,
Kirkby Microwave Ltd,
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