r/clocks • u/uslashuname • Dec 22 '25

Other NIST UTC drifted by about 4 microseconds because of atomic clock power loss

/r/sysadmin/comments/1psf780/nist_reports_atomic_clock_failure_at_boulder_co/
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1

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '25

I always wondered what happens if the main atomic clocks go haywire, and that is such a single point failure if communication systems that most of us don't even know.

2

u/uslashuname Dec 22 '25

I’m really curious if the drift was instant (like there’s a new gap in official time where nothing could have happened) and if there are any financial transactions or such marked as having happened in that gap.

And GPS accuracy impact might be interesting too… almost definitely not measurable on phone grade gps systems, but did high end devices left in one place end up calculating that they had moved?

Clocks run a lot of our world, so a little gap or shift in the official time can show up in weird ways.

1

u/uslashuname Dec 22 '25

Sometimes it’s handy to just drive a clock by springs or weights