Thorium atomic nuclei can be used for very specific precision measurements. This had been suspected for decades, and the search for suitable atomic nucleus states had been ongoing worldwide. In 2024, ...

Scientists have taken another giant step towards building the most precise clock ever imagined—one that could display not only the passage of time, but shifting rules of nature itself. An ...

A team of physicists has discovered a surprisingly simple way to build nuclear clocks using tiny amounts of rare thorium. By ...

Atomic clocks that excite the nucleus of thorium-229 embedded in a transparent crystal when hit by a laser beam could yield the most accurate measurements ever of time and gravity, and even rewrite ...

Atomic clocks have long been the gold standard for measuring time and frequency. Among them, optical clocks—using atoms like strontium or aluminum—have reached staggering levels of accuracy, with ...

In a groundbreaking study, physicists have developed a new method for detecting dark matter, an invisible substance believed to account for around 80% of the universe’s mass. Using thorium-229, a ...