MORE ACCURATE CLOCKS MAY ADD MORE DISORDER TO THE UNIVERSE

All clocks create entropy, but accuracy might come at a higher cost

- Ben Turner

Entropy – or disorder – is created every time a clock ticks. Now scientists working with a tiny clock have proven a simple relationship: the more accurate a clock runs, the more entropy it generates. “If you want your clock to be more accurate, you’ve got to pay for it,” said Natalia Ares, a physicist at the University of Oxford. “Every time we measure time, we are increasing the universe’s entropy.”

As we go forwards in time, the second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of a system must increase. Known as the ‘arrow of time’, entropy is one of the few quantities in physics that sets time to go in a particular direction – from the past, where entropy was low, to the future, where it will be high.