Cosmic rays to calibrate all watches in the world

Cosmic rays to calibrate all watches in the world

Time allows us to always in sync very important. It is used in every aspect of life, from financial transactions, blockchain, satellites, industrial automation, control systems, computers, telephone networks and undersea operations. The world already has a powerful time tracking system. But the mast is not perfect. It has weaknesses and does not always have the required accuracy. If it fails, the impact on the economy will be more than $1 million per day.

Due to its importance, experts keep searching for new ways to do so Elimination of errors. A group of researchers fromUniversity of Tokyo Maybe he found a solution. It is located around Procedure that uses cosmic rays to calibrate all clocks in the connected world cosmic time system (Cts). It relies on a series of sensors capable of detecting particles derived from a collision cosmic rays with the Earth’s atmosphere. Cosmic rays spread at an altitude of 15 kilometers causing precipitation of particles that reach the Earth. When they penetrate the upper atmosphere, they generate pions, which in turn decay into muons and neutrinos. Muons move at a speed similar to light. They are relatives of electrons, they have a negative charge and Weight 207 times greater. when they encounter an electromagnetic field, and when they slow down, they emit less intense radiation; Thus they are more penetrating. Thanks to this, a large part of the muons produced in the upper atmosphere were able to reach the Earth’s surface before they decay, and it is possible to detect them on Earth. If we open our hands, we can expect the muon to collide every second.

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CTS devices, located at different points on the planet, can detect the arrival of cosmic rays, communicate with each other, synchronize the received data based on the moments in which the phenomenon occurred and then use this measure of time. Units can be placed anywhere, including under the sea. It consists of a muon detector, a digital time converter and a crystal oscillator. The muons arrive at Earth roughly simultaneously and depending on where and when they arrive, by compensating for different origins with the arrival data of the cosmic rays they came from, it is possible to keep time. recognizable method. Cosmic rays arrive very often, about 100 times per hour in every square meter of the world. So it is a very reliable source.

The advantage of this technology is that it works in any environment, including the sea floor or under rocks.

Wireless devices are currently being formatted through GPS, which has a deviation of 2000 picoseconds which can become half with more calibration methods. GPS is not always perfect because sometimes the signal is absent, for example underground, in some buildings, in some areas such as the polar regions or in the mountains. It also causes significant battery drain.

One possibility of correction is to have the detector keep the time even if an outage occurs and then recalibrate it when it appears again.

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Another is atomic clocks. The cesium oscillator allows only 100,000 nanoseconds to drift in 14 days. However, its high cost is more than 300,000 dollars, which allows it to be used only in certain sectors. It also uses a distribution system that could be vulnerable to hacker attacks that could lead to its elimination.

Japanese research has shown that cosmic rays can allow you to synchronize every corner of the Earth, and since a used crystal oscillator costs only $100, the hardware you need is already in use, it’s an economical and beneficial option for everyone. Even everyday applications.

Muons penetrate almost everything, and imaging technology (muon geography) provides information that also allows us to visualize the internal structure of volcanoes, railway tunnels, natural caves, and archaeological sites.

In principle, the system recursive synchronization Cts to which they are exposed can repeat continuously and forever and can spread anywhere above or below the Earth’s surface. It all depends only on the area that is covered. The higher the installation density, the greater the stability and accuracy, the fewer small delays that can occur. They should be a few miles away. But it is also possible to use a owned device now Six billion people: the smartphone. The CMOS sensors of their cameras are capable of recording muons. While each phone has a limited detection ability and its area is only 0.2 square centimeters, due to the large number it can be an important tool.

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