Japanese Watchmakers Strive for Perfect Timekeeping

 

By Steve Herman

Man's quest to track time accurately¹ dates back thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians devised the sundial and the water clock. The Babylonians divided the hour and minute into 60 parts, setting the stage for the first mechanical clocks in Europe in the late 13th century. Now, another revolution in high-tech² timekeeping is underway.

For generations, the accuracy of timekeeping could be heard in the ticking of the second hand of a handcrafted watch. Swiss horologists in the early 19th Century found a way to build watches that correct for the tiny errors in timekeeping induced by gravity. Chronophiles are still willing to pay up to $100,000 for such a precision mechanical watch, says Norio Hattori-Paris, who presides over the F.P. Journe watch showroom in Tokyo's Aoyama fashion district.

"We have collectors who are insisting that our watches are very accurate to the second, not because their lifestyle depends on that, but because they want the beauty of accurate mechanical watches," he says.

For centuries, one second was defined as the time it took a one-meter rod to swing from side to side as a pendulum³.

And, in the 1960s, scientists announced the modern second: the time it took a cesium-133 atom to vibrate 9,192,631,770 times.

That is far more accuracy than most people will ever need, but computer producers need a benchmark like this to carry out such critical tasks as keeping satellites in orbit or ensuring that electronic documents are secure and authentic⁴.

And Hiroyuki Ohno, a computer expert at Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, explains that for some types of modern-day measurement, accuracy in the one-second range is about as outdated⁵ as an Egyptian water clock.

"Only one-second accuracy has almost no meaning," he explains. "It's as the same as for the human being world if the clock only displays [the] year. We cannot use [that] clock. In very high-speed computer communication, the situation is the very same: one microsecond accuracy, or more, may be important."

A microsecond is one one-millionth of a second and scientists hope to produce a clock that is many times as accurate as that.

To keep the computerized world in sync, government-funded stations in the United States, Japan, Germany and Great Britain transmit digital radio time signals at very low frequencies, which can penetrate⁶ buildings.

The pulses, these are from one of the two Japanese stations, are picked up by special radio receivers, allowing ultra-precise timekeeping for anyone who can receive the signal.

In 1990, a German company figured out how to put this kind of accuracy into the palm of your hand, or more precisely⁷, on your wrist. But the Junghans Mega One atomic watch needed an antenna⁸ in its wristband to work properly.

Japanese developers took the technology a step further, figuring out how to cram⁹ the receiver and antenna inside the watch itself.

Despite the relative bulkiness and premium¹⁰ prices of radio-controlled wristwatches compared to their quartz¹¹ ancestors, sales are brisk.

Etsuro Nakajima, the general manager of Casio Computer's timepiece products research and development center, says Casio sold more than 1.5 million of the new generation atomic watches in Japan in the last fiscal¹² year.

"For us this is a very revolutionary thing," he notes. "The watch had changed from mechanical to quartz a long time ago. And now from quartz to atomic. And we're shipping¹³ 50 percent radio controlled watches of all of the watches we sell in Japan."

Yukio Takahashi is a leader of the Japan Standard Time Group at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, making him effectively Japan's official timekeeper.

He has 15 cesium clocks in his suburban¹⁴ Tokyo laboratory, which together make up Japan's official master clock. It stays within 50 nanoseconds of Coordinated¹⁵ Universal Time, the world benchmark. That is 50-billionths of one second.

But Mr. Takahashi is still not satisfied, and plans to make his primary clock a thousand times more accurate. "Of course, we must continue to develop the primary clock or Japanese Standard [Time] clock more precisely," he says. "[The] optical primary clock is the next-generation primary clock."

The optical clock will rely on extremely short laser bursts. This timepiece should drift less than one second over 200 million years.

Steve Herman,VOA News, Tokyo.

注释：
Egyptian 埃及人
Babylonian 巴比伦人
handcrafted 手工的
horologist 钟表专家
pendulum 钟摆
benchmark 标准检查
authentic 真实的
microsecond 微秒
antenna 天线
timepiece 时钟
cesium 铯（金属 ）
nanosecond 毫微秒

1 accurately   

adv.准确地，精确地

参考例句：

• It is hard to hit the ball accurately.准确地击中球很难。
• Now scientists can forecast the weather accurately.现在科学家们能准确地预报天气。

2 high-tech   

adj.高科技的

参考例句：

• The economy is in the upswing which makes high-tech services in more demand too.经济在蓬勃发展，这就使对高科技服务的需求量也在加大。
• The quest of a cure for disease with high-tech has never ceased. 人们希望运用高科技治疗疾病的追求从未停止过。

3 pendulum   

n.摆，钟摆

参考例句：

• The pendulum swung slowly to and fro.钟摆在慢慢地来回摆动。
• He accidentally found that the desk clock did not swing its pendulum.他无意中发现座钟不摇摆了。

4 authentic   

a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的

参考例句：

• This is an authentic news report. We can depend on it. 这是篇可靠的新闻报道, 我们相信它。
• Autumn is also the authentic season of renewal. 秋天才是真正的除旧布新的季节。

5 outdated   

adj.旧式的，落伍的，过时的；v.使过时

参考例句：

• That list of addresses is outdated,many have changed.那个通讯录已经没用了，许多地址已经改了。
• Many of us conform to the outdated customs laid down by our forebears.我们许多人都遵循祖先立下的过时习俗。

6 penetrate   

v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解

参考例句：

• Western ideas penetrate slowly through the East.西方观念逐渐传入东方。
• The sunshine could not penetrate where the trees were thickest.阳光不能透入树木最浓密的地方。

7 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

8 antenna   

n.触角，触须；天线

参考例句：

• The workman fixed the antenna to the roof of the house.工人把天线固定在房顶上。
• In our village, there is an antenna on every roof for receiving TV signals.在我们村里，每家房顶上都有天线接收电视信号。

9 cram   

v.填塞，塞满，临时抱佛脚，为考试而学习

参考例句：

• There was such a cram in the church.教堂里拥挤得要命。
• The room's full,we can't cram any more people in.屋里满满的，再也挤不进去人了。

10 premium   

n.加付款；赠品；adj.高级的；售价高的

参考例句：

• You have to pay a premium for express delivery.寄快递你得付额外费用。
• Fresh water was at a premium after the reservoir was contaminated.在水库被污染之后，清水便因稀而贵了。

11 quartz   

n.石英

参考例句：

• There is a great deal quartz in those mountains.那些山里蕴藏着大量石英。
• The quartz watch keeps good time.石英表走时准。

12 fiscal   

adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的

参考例句：

• The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。
• The government has two basic strategies of fiscal policy available.政府有两个可行的财政政策基本战略。

13 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

14 suburban   

adj.城郊的，在郊区的

参考例句：

• Suburban shopping centers were springing up all over America. 效区的商业中心在美国如雨后春笋般地兴起。
• There's a lot of good things about suburban living.郊区生活是有许多优点。

15 coordinated   

adj.协调的

参考例句：

• The sound has to be coordinated with the picture. 声音必须和画面协调一致。
• The numerous existing statutes are complicated and poorly coordinated. 目前繁多的法令既十分复杂又缺乏快调。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法