Cosmic rays can help synchronise the global financial system

Cosmic ray particles capable of penetrating even the densest buildings or underground structures can provide an essentially foolproof timing system for synchronising high-frequency trades in the world’s international stock exchanges.

High-frequency trading is a method involving powerful computers that allows traders to analyse markets and make large numbers of profitable transactions each second – and in order to work, the method requires stock exchanges to be synchronised with nanosecond precision. Financial firms currently rely on time servers synchronised by GPS and other global navigation satellite systems to…