BIPM150 Interview: Prof. Hidetoshi Katori on the Future of Optical Lattice Clocks
What if clocks could do more than tell time — what if they could sense spacetime itself?
At the BIPM’s Scientific Conference during the 150th Anniversary of the Metre Convention, Professor Hidetoshi Katori (University of Tokyo) explained how optical lattice clocks have opened a path to accuracy at the level of 10⁻¹⁸, enabling height differences to be resolved at the centimetre scale, and offering a completely new role for clocks as relativistic sensors.
Watch our interview
Prof. Katori describes why optical lattice clocks were conceived, how millions of atoms can be interrogated at once, and why clocks at the 10⁻¹⁸ level can now detect gravity as a measurable shift in time.
[3 minutes]
Watch the interview on YouTube
Watch Professor Katori’s Keynote Address
In his #BIPM150 keynote, Prof. Katori tells the story of the optical lattice concept — from early discussions as a graduate student, through the breakthrough of blackbody shift control, to commercially available transportable clocks. He also demonstrates how clocks can detect gravitational redshift in real environments — from tower experiments to tectonic uplift after the Tōhoku earthquake — and explores the future: optical clocks as quantum sensors capable of probing unexplored science and geophysics.
[36 minutes]
About the speaker
Professor Hidetoshi Katori is a physicist at the University of Tokyo and a pioneer of optical lattice clocks. His work has been central to reaching uncertainties at the 10⁻¹⁸ level — enabling new applications in fundamental physics and geodesy — and advancing the measurement science that is informing discussions on a future redefinition of the second.