The Universe’s Clock Might Have Bigger Ticks Than We Imagine

The smallest conceivable length of time might be no larger than a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second. That’s according to a new theory describing the implications of the universe having a fundamental clock-like property whose ticks would interact with our best atomic timepieces. 

Such an idea could help scientists get closer to doing experiments that would illuminate a theory of everything, an overarching framework that would reconcile the two pillars of 20th-century physics—quantum mechanics, which looks at the smallest objects in existence, and Albert Einstein’s relativity, which describes the most massive ones.