David W. Allan

David Wayne Allan
Allan in August 2014
Born (1936-09-25) September 25, 1936 (age 88)
Mapleton, Utah, United States
Known forAllan variance
Awards
Scientific career
Fieldsphysics
InstitutionsNational Institute of Standards and Technology
Websiteallanstime.com


David Wayne Allan (born September 25, 1936) is an American atomic clock physicist and author of the Allan variance, also known as the two-sample variance, a measure of frequency stability in clocks, oscillators and other applications.[2] He worked for the National Bureau of Standards in Colorado.[4]

Allan was born in Mapleton, Utah, on September 25, 1936. He studied physics at the Brigham Young University (B.S. 1960) and the University of Colorado (M.S. 1965).[5] From 1960 to 1992, he was a physicist in the Time and Frequency Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (then the National Bureau of Standards) in Boulder, and from 1979 was 1988 chief of the Time and Frequency Coordination Group.[5] He retired in 1992 and lives in Fountain Green, Utah.[5] After retirement, he consulted for Hewlett Packard from 1993 to 1997. While there, he contributed to "The Science of Timekeeping,[6] which documents his contributions to the nation as a timekeeper- generating time from an ensemble of atomic clocks and from the nation's primary frequency standard at NIST/NBS.

Allan was a consultant for the United Nations Development Programme in New Delhi in 1981 and a guest scientist in the People's Republic of China in 1982.[5]

He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[4] He has been married since 1959.[5]

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