Time standards are now based on atomic clocks. Apromising second standard is bas

Question

Time standards are now based on atomic clocks. Apromising second standard is based on pulsars, which are rotatingneutron stars (highly compact stars consisting only of neutrons).Some rotate at a rate that is highly stable, sending out a radiobeacon that sweeps briefly across Earth once with each rotation,like a light-house beacon. Pulsar PSR 1937 + 21 is an example, itrotates once every 1.55780644887275 ± 3 ms, where thetrailing ±3 indicates the uncertainty in the last decimalplace (it does not mean ±3 ms). How many times does itrotate in 6.50 days.What is the associateduncertainty?

Explanation / Answer

6.5 days * 24 hrs * 60 mins * 60 sec =5.616e5 sec 5.616e5 sec/1.55780644887275e -3sec= 3.605069169e8 rotations in 6.5 days since calculators round off after the 9th number, I decidedthat 5.616*105 sec/±3*1015 sec =±1.872e-10 I changed 3e-15 to 3e15 in order to findout how ±3 would effect the the amount of rotations. I am not 100% sure if this is right though the resultant seemslike a strong possibility that it could be.

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