FOUNTAIN GREEN, UT, March 09, 2018 /24-7PressRelease/ -- David Allan has been included in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Atomic clock physicist David Allan is the president and founder of Allan's Time Interval Metrology Enterprise. In this role, he researched new ideas for a unified field theory, including gravity and experimental evidence. Prior to founding the organization, he worked as a senior scientist with the National Bureau of Standards, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and as a consultant for Hewlett-Packard, now the HP Inc. and Bliley Technologies Inc. He also served as a guest speaker/consultant in the State of Israel and to their Director of the National Physical Laboratory in Jerusalem, in 1987. He was a guest scientist/speaker for NIST sent by the State Department to the People's Republic of China in 1982, and one of eight expert speakers for a United Nations Development Program, New Delhi, India in 1981. In 1969, Mr. Allan was a visiting professor at the Istituto Elettrotecnico Nazionale Galileo Ferraris, Turin, Italy, where he helped them with their official Italian timing system. He was also a USA expert to the Consultative Committee for Definition of the Second, The Convention of the Metre, as part of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures.
Mr. Allan's Master's thesis gave birth to what the world knows as the Allan variance, an efficient technique for characterizing the performance of clocks and for knowing how to optimally use them in time keeping, and for which he is best known. The Allan variance was used in characterizing the performance of atomic clocks needed for GPS to meet the stringent specifications for that navigation and timing system. He also helped to develop the nation's official time and frequency standards based on atomic clocks, along with helping in the development of GPS. He also helped other nations with their official time standards, as well as helping with International Atomic Time and Universal Time Coordinated (UTC), which is official time for the world as kept at the BIPM (International Bureau of Weights and Measures) in Paris.
Mr. Allan attended Brigham Young University, obtaining a BS in physics in 1960. He then studied at the University of Colorado, earning a Master of Science in 1965. A leading voice in the field, Mr. Allan has contributed to more than 100 technical papers and co-authored numerous books. In 2014, he published the book "It's About Time - Science Harmonized with Religion," Second Edition (2016), and audio additions (2017), His game changing master's thesis, "Statistics of Atomic Frequency Standards," was published in The Proceedings of the IEEE (February 1966). Because of the significant impact his thesis had, the IEEE published 50th anniversary celebration publication with several authors contributing illustrating the significance of his thesis and the spin offs that have come from it. He served as an organizer of conference sessions for millisecond pulsar timing for the International Astronomical Union Symposium on Relativity and Celestial Mechanics, and the International Radio Scientific Union (now the International Union of Radio Science). Mr. Allan was also associate editor of IEEE's Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control Society (UFFC). The Institute for Scientific Information identified Mr. Allan's thesis publication in their "Citation Classics" "as one of the most cited items in its field."
The results of Mr. Allan's wide-ranging research has been impressive. For instance, in 1984 due to a need on the part of the millisecond pulsar timing community, Mr. Allan took a GPS common-view receiver to Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Observatory, helping to make significant improvements in their measurements, and using the Allan variance in analyzing data, he discovered that the electron content on the path between the 1937+21 millisecond pulsar, first discovered by Backer and Kilcarney of the University of California, Berkley, had a random-walk characteristic, and saw evidence that the pulsar could be a binary, which was later confirmed.
Mr. Allan developed the Modified Allan variance in 1981, which has a wider spectrum of application and can be used in characterizing time distribution systems as well as navigation systems. In 1972, he also developed an innovative time-difference measurement system commensurate for the needs of measuring the ever increasing performance of atomic clocks, a technique used by essentially all major timing centers throughout the world. The time scale algorithm he wrote is still the basis of time as generated at NIST: UTC (NIST). He is also the patentee of SmartClock Technology. When he was consulting for HP, this patent was used to provide special GPS receivers for synchronizing cell-phone towers throughout the world.
When the telecom community asked him for help with a measurement metric for characterizing the timing of telecom networks, Mr. Allan with the help of Dr. Marc Weiss, came up with the Time variance, and because of the need, this variance immediately caught on nationally and internationally. Mr. Allan also developed a learning device coupled to a high quality quartz-crystal oscillator that gave it the performance much like an atomic clock. Cesium atomic clocks determine the length of the "second" for the United States and for the world. His group at NBS prototyped some special GPS common-view, timing receivers, tested at major timing centers throughout the world with great success, and the technique was thereafter used extensively for most of the atomic clocks contributing to TAI and UTC. These special timing receivers were initially funded by NASA/JPL because of their need for synchronized clocks for their Deep Space Network tracking stations. These innovative receivers provided a major improvement for the DSN.
A respected voice in the industry, Mr. Allan has been recognized throughout his career for his achievements, including with the IEEE Joseph F. Keithley Award in 2018 "For leadership in time determination and precise timing instruments," and an award from IEEE in 2016 for seminal work to the UFFC community regarding time determination, time prediction, time dissemination and timekeeping through contributions to atomic frequency standards, space-based navigation, time and frequency stability analysis, time-scale algorithms, and timekeeping devices. Mr. Allan is also the recipient of the Time Lord Award in 2011, the I. I. Rabi Award for contributions to the measurement and characterization of precise time and frequency sources from IEEE in 1984, the Invention Award from the U.S. Air Force in 1978, the International Research IR-100 Award in 1972, and the Silver Medal of the Department of Commerce, NIST in 1968. In 1999 he was named an honorary fellow by the Institute of Navigation.
Mr. Allan is a Fellow of The Institution of Navigation, Inc., and a member of the International Astronomical Union, International Union of Radio Science, the International Radio Consultative Committee (now Radiocommunication Sector), the Radio Division of the International Telecommunications Union and Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society. He is also an honorary Life Senior Member of IEEE, and chaired committees for these and other industry organizations over the years. He was the first international chairman of a sub-committee for obtaining precise time from GPS for the civilian sector.
Mr. Allan feels that he has been privileged to 'stand on the shoulders of giants' during his career path, and humbly acknowledges help from many colleagues and especially from on High for what he is credited in accomplishing.
Outside of his professional roles, Mr. Allan has served as Bishop of the Boulder Second Ward, Stake President of the Boulder Stake, and engaged in missionary activities in West Africa for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
When not involved in research, he enjoys jogging, cross-country skiing, mountain biking, and walking with his wife, Edna Love Ramsay Allan, with whom he has seven children. Born in Mapleton, Utah in 1936, Mr. Allan intends to expand upon his research and continue to seamlessly entwine the fields of religion and science through his work.
Visit his Wikipedia page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_W._Allan.
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