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Concept

Caesium-133

A circular design with radiating lines and small dots resembling a conceptual representation of the Caesium-133 atom's ground-state hyperfine transition.

A naturally occurring, stable isotope of caesium whose ground-state hyperfine transition oscillates at exactly 9,192,631,770 hertz — a frequency declared by international agreement in 1967 to be the definition of the second. The choice was practical: caesium has only one stable isotope, vapourises near room temperature, and its transition is sharp and well isolated from neighbouring atomic levels.

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