科學新發現：我們的1秒鐘將變長了！
We all know time is a construct, and right now, it's kept by the very precise tick of an International network of around 500 atomic clocks.
我們都知道時間是個複雜的概念。目前，世界上有一個由大約500臺原子鐘組成的網絡，而我們就通過這些原子鐘精確的滴答進行計時。
But now researchers have shown that time could be kept even more accurately with a new-generation of clocks called optical clocks, and they want to use the new system to redefine a second - which would mean we could squeeze even more into our days. The optical clock they've just measured is so precise that it would have lost less than two minutes if it had been running since the birth of the Universe, which is pretty incredible once you wrap your head around it.
但是現在研究人員表示，新一代鐘錶——光學鍾——可以更準確地計時，而且他們想用新系統來重新定義一秒鐘的長度，這也就意味着我們的日子裏甚至可以擠進去更多光陰。剛剛測量的光學鍾非常精確，如果它從宇宙誕生之日起開始運行的話，到現在誤差還不到兩分鐘，仔細想想簡直不可思議。
Global time-keeping is important, because 'the second' - as defined by the International System of Units (SI) - is what our GPS devices, electrical power grids, and financial networks all rely on.
全球計時是非常重要的，因爲我們的GPS設備、電網和金融網絡全都依賴着由國際計量系統（SI）定義的“秒”。
That's why we use atomic - or microwave - clocks, which measure the vibration of a caesium atom to keep time, just like the tiny swinging of a pendulum. And since 1967, a SI second has been defined as 9,192,631,770 cycles of those vibrations. But, as specific as that sounds, even the best atomic clocks can still accumulate an error of about 1 nanosecond over a month.
這也是我們應用原子鐘或微波鐘的原因，它們通過測量銫原子的擺動來計時，就像一個鐘擺在輕微擺動。自1967年以來，國際計量系統定義的一秒就是91億9263萬1770次這種微小擺動。但是，儘管聽起來很精準，即使是最好的原子鐘在一個月的時間內也仍然會積累出十億分之一秒的誤差。
Optical clocks, on the other hand, are even more precise. They work similarly to atomic clocks, but they measure the oscillations of atoms or ions that vibrate at frequencies about 100,000 times higher than microwave frequencies - which is a whole lot faster, and therefore more accurate.
另一方面，光學鍾卻更爲精確。它們的工作原理與原子鐘相似，測量原子或離子的振動，但這些原子或離子的擺動頻率大約是微波頻率的10萬倍左右——這要快得多，因此也更爲準確。
"Our study is a milestone in terms of practical implementation of optical clocks," said one of the researchers, Christian Grebing, from the National Metrology Institute of Germany, "The message is that we could today implement these optical clocks into the time-keeping infrastructure that we have now, and we would gain."
德國國家計量研究所的一位研究人員克里斯蒂安·格雷賓說：“就光學鐘的實際應用而言，我們的研究是一塊里程碑。也就是說，今天我們可以把這些光學鍾納入目前擁有的計時基礎設施之中，而且，我們會有所收穫。”
That gain is the ability to squeeze more into every second. Us slow humans wouldn't really notice, but things like financial time stamps would be more specific ,and banks would be able to complete even more transactions per second.
收穫就是可以在每一秒之中擠入更多的時光。我們這些慢騰騰的人類不會真正注意到這點變化，但是金融時間戳之類的東西會更爲精準，而銀行甚至會在每秒鐘完成更多的交易。
