Monday, June 11, 2012

Attoseconds

I learned a new word today, attosecond. An attosecond is 10−18 seconds: 0.000000000000000001 seconds. You might think that this time interval would be of little practical use, but KMLabs in Boulder, Colorado just announced that their new x-ray laser produced pulses 2.5 attoseconds long.

My mind is seriously boggled by this time scale.

No comments: