When you glance at a clock, in a hospital, or at school, or at some other institution that still uses analog clocks, the second hand seemed to lag just for a second before resuming its normal pace ...

Read about upgrading A Second-Gen Firebird Clock To Quartz Movement by High ... See All 14 Photos. ... but the skip-pattern of the second hand was replaced by a continuous sweep and accuracy was ...

The clock could one day be used to redefine the second itself. The new timekeeper, called an optical lattice clock, uses lasers and the oscillations of strontium atoms to parcel out time.

Photograph: Fabrice CoffrinI/AFP/Getty Images . Derek Scally. Thu Mar 06 2014 - 01:00. ... (€2,668) a go to replace functioning clocks, just to get a working second hand again.