The Zhou paper should be taken with a grain of salt. It does report on a number of deviations measured during eclipses. More investigations is needed to characterize the cause of these deviations.
Agreed. It is not uncommon for well-done experiments to spend more time on analysis of error sources than the "signal" itself. One must be one's own worst critic.
By contrast, one reason I liked the paper by Udem, et al. is that their experiment seemed objective and quite thorough. They monitored ambient parameters including temperature, mains voltage, 3-axis magnetic field and air pressure. They used four different make/models of atomic clocks (from Rb to maser). The graphs are an outstanding example to any time-nut of correct and clear visual display of timing data. And, they make all the raw data available anyone. Hard to beat that. Intro pages: <http://www.mpq.mpg.de/~haensch/eclipse/eclipse.html> <http://www.mpq.mpg.de/~haensch/eclipse/prosa.html> Plots (see figure1.html through figure6.html) <http://www.mpq.mpg.de/~haensch/eclipse/figure1.html> Raw data: <http://www.mpq.mpg.de/~haensch/eclipse/data.html> One thing to remember about looking for obscure events or subtle effects is that the best atomic clocks today are 100x or 1000x more stable than those from a few decades ago. So a small effect, if actually seen, in the 1990 's should be huge with the level of precision available in today's timing laboratories around the world. /tvb _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.