Related papers: Measuring Time with Minimal Clocks
Circadian clocks are oscillatory genetic networks that help organisms adapt to the 24-hour day/night cycle. The clock of the green alga Ostreococcus tauri is the simplest plant clock discovered so far. Its many advantages as an experimental…
We argue that (1) our perception of time through change and (2) the gap between reality and our observation of it are at the heart of both quantum mechanics and the dynamical mechanism of physical systems. We suggest that the origin of…
A possible mechanism of time is formulated by developing an idea of time replaced by quantum correlations, with the aid of modern quantum information theory. We invent a microscopic model, where correlations of a closed system are steadily…
We show that if one or more of the `constants' of Nature can vary then their values, as measured in the laboratory, should oscillate over the year in a very particular way. These seasonal changes in the constants could well be detected, in…
Brownian clocks are biomolecular networks that can count time. A paradigmatic example are proteins that go through a cycle thus regulating some oscillatory behaviour in a living system. Typically, such a cycle requires free energy often…
Many biological systems are governed by difference equations and exhibit discrete-time dynamics. Examples include the size of a population when generations are non-overlapping, and the incidence of a disease when infections are recorded at…
Motivated by the observation of non-exponential run-time distributions of bacterial swimmers, we propose a minimal phenomenological model for taxis of active particles whose motion is controlled by an internal clock. The ticking of the…
It is pointed out that the mystery of how biological systems measure their lengths vanishes away if one premises that they have discovered a way to generate linear waves analogous to compressional sound. These can be used to detect length…
Weakly coupled oscillators adjust their dynamics to work in unison: they synchronize. This ubiquitous phenomenon is observed for oscillating pendulum, electronic devices, as well as clapping crowds or flashing fireflies. In effect,…
In earlier papers we showed unpredictability beyond quantum uncertainty in atomic clocks, ensuing from a proven gap between given evidence and explanations of that evidence. Here we reconceive a clock, not as an isolated entity, but as…
Pulsars are remarkably precise "celestial clocks" that can be used to explore many different aspects of physics and astrophysics. In this article I give a brief summary of pulsar properties and describe some of the applications of pulsar…
Optical clocks based on atoms and ions probe relativistic effects with unprecedented sensitivity by resolving time dilation due to atom motion or different positions in the gravitational potential through frequency shifts. However, all…
Circadian oscillation provides selection advantages through synchronization to the daylight cycle. However, a reliable clock must be designed through two conflicting properties: entrainability to synchronize internal time with periodic…
Quantile clocks are defined as convolutions of subordinators $L$, with quantile functions of positive random variables. We show that quantile clocks can be chosen to be strictly increasing and continuous and discuss their practical modeling…
We characterize good clocks, which are naturally subject to fluctuations, in statistical terms. We also obtain the master equation that governs the evolution of quantum systems according to these clocks and find its general solution. This…
In general relativity, the picture of spacetime assigns an ideal clock to each worldline. Being ideal, gravitational effects due to these clocks are ignored and the flow of time according to one clock is not affected by the presence of…
In the last ten years extraordinary results in time and frequency metrology have been demonstrated. Frequency-stabilization techniques for continuous-wave lasers and femto-second optical frequency combs have enabled a rapid development of…
There are a number of problematic features within the current treatment of time in physical theories, including the "timelessness" of the Universe as encapsulated by the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. This paper considers one particular…
We analyze the effect of realistic noise sources for an atomic clock consisting of a local oscillator that is actively locked to a spin-squeezed (entangled) ensemble of $N$ atoms. We show that the use of entangled states can lead to an…
We present a simple argument leading to a fundamental minimum uncertainty in the determination of times. It only relies in the uncertainty principle and time dilation in a gravitational field. It implies any attempt to measure times will…