The world's first atomic wristwatch

A scientist has created the world's first true atomic wristwatch, packing a chip-scale atomic clock into a wearable carbon fibre case.

You may have seen so-called atomic wristwatches around, but there's a caveat: they actually keep atomic time by receiving radio signals from nearby government-owned atomic clocks. If they go out of range of those signals, you'll be left relying on a plain old quartz movement.

The Cesium 133 by scientist Dr John Patterson's manufacturer Bathys, currently seeking Kickstarter backers, is different. Patterson calls his watch the "world's first true atomic wristwatch", and the difference is in the insides: a chip-scale atomic clock (CSAC) hosting a cesium-based oscillator fits right inside the case, dividing each second precisely into the 9,192,631,770 vibrations of the cesium atom.

"The technology found in this watch is something even a decade ago no one could imagine existing in such a small package," Dr Patterson explained on his website. "Within a single chip there is a laser, a heater, a sealed cavity of cesium gas, a microwave filter and a photodiode detector. Using the exact same principle of counting hyperfine lines of excited cesium 133 atoms used by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), our watch is able to achieve unprecedented levels of accuracy; on the order of 1 second per thousand years."

This means that the Bathys Cesium 133 is the world's most accurate wristwatch, only losing up to a single second every 1000 years. This is more accurate by three orders of magnitude than current wristwatch technologies.

The current iteration of the watch is powered by a rechargeable lithium battery that will run up to 36 hours between chargers, and the dial displays hours, minutes, seconds, the date and the moon phase. Under the case, the CSAC is paired with a Ronda 509 Quartz movement so that the timekeeping of the CSAC can be translated to the dial.

All of this is housed in carbon fibre, which keeps the watch lightweight and rust-free.

If you want one, it's not going to be like picking up a Seiko from your local jeweller. The six prototypes are going for US$6000 apiece on Kickstarter, while a new watch will cost you US$10,000, and very limited numbers are going to be produced. In haute horlogerie terms, however, this is a pretty great price for something that's bound to become a collectors' item in years to come.

Head on over to the Bathys Cesium 133 Kickstarter page for more information.