[time-nuts] Surplus Guidelines, was: Rubidium Standard

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <457C6134.4030606 at pacific.net>, Brooke Clarke writes:

>I think there are two things that go wrong with Rubidium standards. 
>1.    The Rubidium in either the lamp or the absorption cell (I forget 
>which) gets used up [...]

That's not quite correct.  The normal "old age" failure mode is
that the glass bulb absorbs rubidium and becomes so blackend that
the light doesn't shine through any more.

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