The new timekeeper, called an optical lattice clock, uses lasers and the oscillations of strontium atoms to parcel out time. It is so unerring in its accuracy that if such a clock had been ticking since the instant of the Big Bang, some 13.8 billion years ago, it would have lost only about 46 seconds in all that time.

Impressive as that is, it's the new clock's stability and consistency in parsing out these precise units of time that sets it apart from other cutting-edge atomic clocks. Because of its precision, it could ultimately be used to establish a new and more accurate standard for the length of a second.

"For example, you might have a wristwatch that gains a second one