[time-nuts] 10811 crystal orientation

[Tom Van Baak]

> Agreed. Has anyone done the crucial experiment? establish stats, rotate
> assembly, establish stats, etc? Should be able to measure at least if
> there is an effect, and also if it is present, an approximate magnitude...
> Don

Hi Don,

There are two rather different topics here.

One is do crystal oscillators change frequency when they
are turned. The answer to that is yes. This gravitational
acceleration effect is rather huge, parts in ten to the 9th
or so, and anyone can see this. This is why you never
touch, bump, or move, or rotate a laboratory frequency
standard (this includes GPSDO and cesium standards).

The other question is what happens to quartz crystals or
pendulum clocks or werewolves during a solar eclipse.
This is the possible pseudo-science topic, although I do
applaud anyone who carefully looks into it. A recent and
good example of such an experiment is described here:

"Effect of the 1999 Solar Eclipse on Atomic Clocks"
<http://www.mpq.mpg.de/~haensch/comb/people/thomas/Nature99.pdf>

"On the Behaviour of Atomic Clocks during the
1999 Solar Eclipse over Central Europe"
<http://www.mpq.mpg.de/~haensch/eclipse/full.html>

/tvb