From: gay@sfu.ca   
      
   Michael Cole wrote:   
      
   > Hi all.  I hope you all celebrated the new kilogram last night.  The   
   > Champaign corks were flying last night!  Let us celebrate our   
   > liberation from French tyranny.   
   >   
   > Can anybody recommend a good paper that explains the workings of   
   > atomic   
   > clocks?  I am more interested in physical principles than engineering   
   > details.  What exactly is it about the Cesium 133 atom that makes it   
   > so   
   > convenient for keeping time?  I assume they considered other atoms,   
   > but   
   > settled on Cesium as most convenient.  Is there a good simple reason   
   > for this?   
      
   A single stable isotope? (As opposed to two for Rb)   
   --   
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   [[Mod. note -- See a following article (in this same thread) by   
   Phillip Helbig for a link to a web page which gives a nice summary   
   of some of the other reasons.   
   -- jt]]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)