“To our knowledge, the concept of obtaining time fingerprints, and therefore avoiding the need to measure time zero, is completely novel,” Berholts said in an email. She added that the new invention is a watch, not a clock, because “a clock requires keeping track of time” whereas “a watch simply provides the time.”
“The quantum watch provides a fingerprint representing a specific time, and hence only requires interaction when initiating and reading out the time,” she explained. “All other devices require keeping track of time. This differentiation comes from the fact that the quantum watch, unlike all the other clocks, measures times in a different way.”