Scientists are hoping to redefine the second – here's why

Quartz crystal, a tiny musical tuning fork of high frequency and stability, is used in most modern clocks. The atomic clock, which all our normal clocks check to discipline themselves, was first built by Louis Essen. It worked by calculating the flipping frequency of electrons in caesium atoms. The frequency is so sharp that one second is exactly 9,192,631,770 caesium electron spin flips.

GPS technology, something found on every smartphone, has the accuracy of atomic clocks built-in.

Ultra-fast lasers, linked to atomic clocks, creates a new kind of optical atomic clock that is being researched by scientists. It is about a hundred times more precise than previous atomic spin measurements.

Such hyper-accurate time using laser beams provides new ways for scientists to detect space-time distortion, volcanic eruptions, and distant gravitational waves.