Posted on 10/26/2020 10:27:51 PM PDT by LibWhacker
To measure small differences in time, you need a really tiny clock, and researchers in Germany have discovered the smallest known clock: a single hydrogen molecule. Using the travel of light across the length of that molecule, those scientists have measured the smallest interval of time ever: 247 zeptoseconds. Dont know what a zepto is? Read on
When a bit of light, called a photon, hits an atom with enough energy, it can kick the electron out of that atom and send it flying. When we carefully set up this situation in a laboratory, we can measure the electron shooting out of the atom and deduce when it got the big kick from the incoming photon.
With more than one electron, you can turn this arrangement into a tiny, very fast clock. The photon will hit one electron, and then the other, and by measuring the delay between outgoing electrons, we can measure the amount of time it takes for the photon to travel from one electron to the other within the molecule.
For years scientists have been building various atomic contraptions to do exactly this, finding smaller and smaller clocks as they go. Recently, a team at Goethe University in Germany managed to accomplish this with only a single hydrogen molecule (H2): two protons sharing two electrons.
Using an X-ray beam at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), a particle accelerator in Hamburg, the team observed the slight differences in timing when the two electrons raced out of the molecule when shot with the X-rays, as reported in the October issue of Science.
From there, they could calculate the time it took for the X-ray photons to make the jump from one end of the molecule to the other. And that time difference amounted to barely anything at all: 247 zeptoseconds. One zeptosecond is a trillionth of a billionth of a second.
If you want that written out (and I know you do), that looks like this: 0.000000000000000000247 seconds.
Its a new world record for the shortest time interval ever recorded, and further work in this field helps us understand the detailed structures of molecules and their relationship to incoming photons, which has applications everywhere from chemistry to nuclear power.
I still believe time is a human construct, whether a short or longer time according to the above theory with photons and atoms interacting. It shows a difference, but it is still the human mind that constructs it. And yes, I did stay at a Holiday Inn.
Gosh.
It seems like only yesterday we were contemplating why the chicken crossed the road.
Still longer than Joe Biden’s attention span.
Good one
Hydrogen atoms dont exist by themselves in ordinary mature. Two H atoms combine to make the smallest occurring ordinary matter
If you mean "on Earth," you would be right - but that is a very parochial view of the world.
Only a very small fraction of all Hydrogen found in the Universe is in the form of H2 (or H2O, for that matter).
Extra credit points for guessing in which form most of the Hydrogen is.
Regards,
That's the beauty of this experimental set-up: It doesn't require you to determine the
position of the electrons. Rather, it is sufficient to know the distance between them (with a given probability).
Analogy: I have no idea where my wife is right now (position), nor do I know her speed and direction (momentum), but I know that she is within 2 meters of our son.
Regards,
I always thought the second was a little too long. Maybe they should rethink the whole thing and go to metric time after all. Make the second about 1/3 shorter, then make 100 seconds replace the minute.
Daylight Savings Time they could just move the decimal point.
Most Hydrogen in Nature is in an unbounded, ionized state.
Regards,
I guess that’s true, since the temperature in stars is too high for molecules to form.
C’mon man, who didn’t know this!
And it rhymes TOO! Good show!
Isnt pure water a mix of H2O and equal concentrations of atomic hydrogen and hydroxide? Granted, the two reform into H2O when they meet, but I think I recall the ratio remained constant.
Just for you GW:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9SqQNgDrgg
He looks it.
Not to be confused with a Yoctosecond.
Zep-to-dee-doo-dah, zep-to-dee-ay.
My, oh, my, what a wonderful day.
Heisenberg is pissed off, certainly.
He looks it.
________________
It’s not certain. In fact, in principle, it’s uncertain.
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