To link with gravity (Score 5, Interesting)

Generally, people have already measured the gravitational redshift in many other contexts. That should not take away from this impressive achievement. The team here measured the gravitational redshift by comparing the clock-rates inferred from atoms at the top and bottom of a cloud of atoms that was itself smaller than a grain of rice. I've spent much of my career building precision gravity-sensing systems -- I'm happy to assure you that this news is very cool. Clocks are an awesome way to learn a lot of new things about gravity, particularly because they measure differences in potential, rather than differences in acceleration. In the past two decades, we have seen atomic clocks begin to become sensitive to terrestrial gravity. In the next two decades, we are likely to see clocks begin to open up previously-impossible measurements. The measurement described here is a wonderful stepping-stone on that path. Best regards Hunk TV Apk TQ