Zeptoseconds! Scientists Measure the Shortest Unit of Time Ever (livescience.com) 42
nickwinlund77 quotes Live Science:
Scientists have measured the shortest unit of time ever: the time it takes a light particle to cross a hydrogen molecule.
That time, for the record, is 247 zeptoseconds. A zeptosecond is a trillionth of a billionth of a second, or a decimal point followed by 20 zeroes and a 1. Previously, researchers had dipped into the realm of zeptoseconds; in 2016, researchers reporting in the journal Nature Physics used lasers to measure time in increments down to 850 zeptoseconds. This accuracy is a huge leap from the 1999 Nobel Prize-winning work that first measured time in femtoseconds, which are millionths of a billionths of seconds.
It takes femtoseconds for chemical bonds to break and form, but it takes zeptoseconds for light to travel across a single hydrogen molecule (H2). To measure this very short trip, physicist Reinhard Dörner of Goethe University in Germany and his colleagues shot X-rays from the PETRA III at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), a particle accelerator in Hamburg. The researchers set the energy of the X-rays so that a single photon, or particle of light, knocked the two electrons out of the hydrogen molecule. (A hydrogen molecule consists of two protons and two electrons.) The photon bounced one electron out of the molecule, and then the other, a bit like a pebble skipping over the top of a pond. These interactions created a wave pattern called an interference pattern, which Dörner and his colleagues could measure with a tool called a Cold Target Recoil Ion Momentum Spectroscopy (COLTRIMS) reaction microscope.
That time, for the record, is 247 zeptoseconds. A zeptosecond is a trillionth of a billionth of a second, or a decimal point followed by 20 zeroes and a 1. Previously, researchers had dipped into the realm of zeptoseconds; in 2016, researchers reporting in the journal Nature Physics used lasers to measure time in increments down to 850 zeptoseconds. This accuracy is a huge leap from the 1999 Nobel Prize-winning work that first measured time in femtoseconds, which are millionths of a billionths of seconds.
It takes femtoseconds for chemical bonds to break and form, but it takes zeptoseconds for light to travel across a single hydrogen molecule (H2). To measure this very short trip, physicist Reinhard Dörner of Goethe University in Germany and his colleagues shot X-rays from the PETRA III at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), a particle accelerator in Hamburg. The researchers set the energy of the X-rays so that a single photon, or particle of light, knocked the two electrons out of the hydrogen molecule. (A hydrogen molecule consists of two protons and two electrons.) The photon bounced one electron out of the molecule, and then the other, a bit like a pebble skipping over the top of a pond. These interactions created a wave pattern called an interference pattern, which Dörner and his colleagues could measure with a tool called a Cold Target Recoil Ion Momentum Spectroscopy (COLTRIMS) reaction microscope.
I'm no nuclear physicist but... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought exactly the same as you, it seemed like an obvious mistake.
Re: I'm no nuclear physicist but... (Score:2)
Indeed you aren't, Colonel O'Neill!
How about the 10^-43 seconds bang (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I commented on the Big Bang timeframe in my submission. Do they know *all* of the physics yet that went into the initial expansion of that? If they do then they haven't replicated this in a laboratory, yet?
Re:How about the 10^-43 seconds bang (Score:5, Informative)
We have a ways to go.
There are more Planck-times in a zeptosecond than there are zeptoseconds in a second.
10^23 Planck-times in a zeptosecond.
10^21 zeptoseconds in a second.
Re: How about the 10^-43 seconds bang (Score:1)
Thank you. None of the articles even mentioned that and I wanted to know.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: How about the 10^-43 seconds bang (Score:5, Informative)
No, the Planck time/length is just the limit of the "we have no fucking idea what's going on and all the laws of physics seem invalid below that" scale.
Causality itself is apparently irrelevant there. Which makes it impossible for us to ponder it, since the point of science and our brains' thinking is to find a cause.
And hence we absolutely do not know what happened to the universe before that time and below that size.
It requires an entirely new way of thinking, *beyond* asking "Why?". ... like any normal human being ... look up "Münchhausen trilemma" and weep. Solve THAT!
If you can't accept that
In the end, the point of us thinking like we do, is that it is useful to predict the results of an alteration of your surroundings, for when you have a goal and want to choose your actions so they approach that goal.
And here, we'll have to find usefulness outside of the prediction of effects. If that even makes sense.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: How about the 10^-43 seconds bang (Score:2)
That would mean that the simulation simulating the simulation is even *more* wasteful. :)
Shortest Unit of Time Ever (Score:2)
. . . That's what she said . . . !
Nearly Settles a debate I once had (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Except that zeptoseconds are not even halfway between human perception range and the suspected unit of time.
Also, you can't have quantized distance with continuous time.
Time is most likely quantized. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a moot point for now though - the "tick" of the universal clock, Planck time, is 5-39e-44 seconds, 25 orders of magnitude smaller than this measurement. Twenty orders smaller than yottoseconds, which is (as best I can find) the shortest time scale that particle decay processes work on. It's such a fine-grained quantization that I doubt it would affect physics at even a fundamental level, since all physical process we've so far observed work on time scales that are almost incomprehensibly larger.
Re: Time is most likely quantized. (Score:4, Funny)
You're saying the universe wastes a LOT of battery on a uslessly high-DPI reality on top of its ridiculous exponentially growing bloat?
I wonder who, with a certain complex and cult following, might have developed that one... ;)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:Still not good enough to measure (Score:4, Funny)
Great! (Score:2, Funny)
Zeptoseconds!
When will Linux/XFS get updated [slashdot.org] to record timestamps in this instead of nanoseconds?
Shortest Measure if Time is (Score:1)
The old joke says this is the time between when the light turns green, and the person behind you blows their horn.
Re: Shortest Measure if Time is (Score:2)
Trick question. You blow the horn BEFORE the light changes!
We have another opnion here (Score:2, Insightful)
Higgs boson lifetime (Score:2)
Re: Higgs boson lifetime (Score:2)
Simple: Nobody measured that.
Who comes up with these prefix names? (Score:2)
Can I do the next ones?
Seckymcseconds
Shortasstimes
Logassplancktimes
. . .
Re: Who comes up with these prefix names? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
a zeptosecond is defined as (Score:2)
The Peptosecond is much shorter (Score:2)
Starts when you finish that sloppy joe and then you better clear a path!
That Went Too Fast (Score:1)
depends on what is meant by "measured" (Score:2)
Much faster processes have been measured by line-widths, but that isn't really a direct measurement. Interfererometers can measure very small delays in how long it takes light to propagate between to mirrors, but one could argue that is really an average measurements.
Still its a nice measurement.
I thought that the shortest time (Score:2)
was the time it took for a photon to cross a nucleus, not a molecule.
Zep (Score:1)
Does Robert Plant get royalties?
Holy S*** (Score:2)
It takes a synchrotron to split H?
Unless nature can do it for us cheaper, Hydrogen conversion for electricity is not economically within reach anytime soon.
All hail Zepto! (Score:2)
...The only CGS unit named after Zepto Marx!
Bullshit - let's have some real world benchmarks h (Score:2)
Shortest period of time is that between me dragging my tired ass through the door after a hard day's work and my lovely wife telling me what needs fixing in the house.
Alternatively, time between a light going green in NYC and the asshole behind you honking their horn...