What Is a Zeptosecond?

In a football game on Sunday, the ball was intercepted and the defensive back started to run the ball back about 90 yards for a touchdown. Only he never made it. A wide receiver took off after him and caught him at about the 7-yard line. To watch it happen was simply amazing. He reached a speed of 22 mph.

That’s fast for a human being, but it’s a lifetime in physics. Scientists are trying to measure things in smaller blocks of time. They measured how long it took for a single particle of light to cross a single atom of hydrogen and came up with 247 zeptoseconds. A zeptosecond is a one after a decimal point followed by 20 zeros! That’s a trillionth of a billionth of a second. That’s relevant to science but not practical to us as humans.

However, time is something we should all think about. By breaking tasks into more discrete time intervals, we can focus on the individual elements that make up any task. I’ll give you a practical example in Thursday’s Memo. Until then, think about the tasks you perform and how many discrete intervals are involved in them. It will all make sense on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: DOI: 10.1126/science.abb9318.