Conference: De l’astronomie aux horloges atomiques, une fabuleuse épopée de la mesure du temps – May 15th 2025, 6pm – LNE – Paris
Conference on measurements and time
The LNE is continuing its “Les mesures et…” series of conferences, with the fifth “Les mesures et le temps : quel futur ?” conference on May 15, 2025. “.
De l’astronomie aux horloges atomiques, une fabuleuse épopée de la mesure du temps
[conference in French]
Since ancient Egypt, humans have deployed remarkable techniques and strategies to push back the limits of precision in time measurement.
In this lecture, you’ll discover how, in the mid-twentieth century, quantum physics supplanted astronomy to produce time measurements with atomic clocks whose current accuracies reach 18 digits, corresponding to a drift of just one second over 15 billion years. This precision is not ultimate, and will have to be further improved to meet the major challenges of science and society, with a necessary change in the definition of the unit of time, the second, planned for the next decade.
Program and speakers
Moderator:
Maguelonne Chambon (LNE Research Director)
Speakers :
Noël Dimarcq (Research Director, CNRS)
Marie-Christine Angonin (Professor at Sorbonne University, Observatoire de Paris)
Practical information
Date: Thursday, May 15, 2025 at 6:00 p.m.
Venue: LNE, 1 rue Gaston Boissier, Paris 15th (Salle des conférences)
Free conference upon registration
This conference is part of the cycle of conferences organized throughout 2025 by the LNE to mark the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Metre Convention.