Every second, billions of devices around the world act in perfect coordination. Financial markets execute trades, GPS satellites navigate airplanes, power grids balance electricity, internet networks exchange data, and mobile phones communicate—all because they agree on the exact same time. But how does the entire world stay synchronized down to fractions of a second?

In this episode, we explore the remarkable science and engineering behind global timekeeping. We dive into physics, electrical engineering, telecommunications, computer science, satellite navigation, and metrology to understand how atomic clocks define the modern second and how that time is distributed across the planet.

We also explore Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), leap seconds, the Global Positioning System (GPS), Network Time Protocol (NTP), Precision Time Protoco ...