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Did you know?

The second, the base unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), has roots dating back to ancient civilizations. Originally defined through astronomical events, the second was once 1/86,400 of a day, based on Earth’s rotation. However, the Earth’s rotation isn’t perfectly consistent due to gravitational interactions and geological activity, making this measurement imprecise for modern needs.

Today, the second is defined by atomic perfection: it is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to a specific transition in the cesium-133 atom. This definition, adopted in 1967, takes advantage of atomic clocks, which can measure time with incredible accuracy, losing only about a second every hundreds of millions of years. Such precision is essential for technologies like GPS, telecommunications, and the synchronization of global networks.