building the most accurate clock on the planet

Louis Marmet works for the National Research Council's Institute for National Measurement Standards. Three floors below his office in the NRC complex on Montreal Road are two atomic clocks that display Canada's most accurate time.

...

But that's not good enough for Marmet and his team, which includes University of Ottawa physics professor Christian Gigault. They are building what they hope will be the most accurate clock on the planet -- Canada's first cesium fountain clock.

The fountain clock is a modified atomic clock that Gigault says will be "about 100 times" more precise than the current crop of atomic clocks -- which are already accurate to one second every 30 million years. "We have to be very, very careful in building it, because it has to be perfect," he says.

Canada.com - Why a clock that loses 1 second every 30 million years won't cut it