Universal Time Coordinated or Coordinated Universal Time

UT (or UTC,) is an abbreviation for “Universal Time Coordinated (or Coordinated Universal) Time.” It is the point from which humans measure the passing of time on the earth. We build sundials, hourglasses, clocks, and watches to mark the passing of time based on the seasons and revolutions of the sun moon and stars. As best we know, it has only been for the last 5000 to 6000 years that people have been keeping track of time but it has only been since 1972 we have been using "Coordinated Universal Time," which is measured with cesium run clocks.

Cesium is a true element, named for its sky blue color when burned. Robert Bunsen, (the Bunsen burner guy,) discovered it in 1860 with his associate Gustav Robert Kirchoff, through the spectroscopic analysis he was doing in regards to evaporated mineral water. Cesium has many interesting features and is used in interesting applications. For example, the Mineral Information Institute documents that cesium it is a highly efficient form of space fuel.

Dispite it's interesting uses, the best application so far for Cesium is apparently in atomic clocks. Amazingly, these clocks are accurate to within 5 seconds every three hundred years. They are accurate because they measure time based upon the vibrations of the electrons circling in the outer shell of a single cesium atom.

But does anybody even really know WHAT time it is? And does anybody really care.. about time. You know I can''t imagine why we even measure it. What is time anyhow? Is it something that we can even run out of? Did it begin? Will it ever end? Does it all just simply depend on your perspective? Whatever it is, the cesium stuff is in sync with it.

It seems that we humans are creatures of time. We experience it’s passage. The days, seasons, and years, all add up and we talk about our lifetimes. Like a river that flows, time…whatever it is… seems to continuously sweep us along in its furious current.

Songs have been written. Theories have been formulated. Cesium atoms have been studied and put to good use so we can measure the very thing that waits for no one; time.