Blink and you will definitely miss it.
Scientists have measured the shortest interval of time recorded so far, which is how long it takes a light particle to cross a single atom of hydrogen.
According to a team of German researchers, the ultra-quest trip took 247 zeptoseconds, with zeptoseconds representing billions of seconds. This is equal to the number 1 written behind the decimal point and 20 zeros.
These findings are the culmination of global efforts in physics to measure short-term and short-term periods, and provide scientists with a way to accurately measure atomic change through what is known as the photoelectric effect.
Albert Einstein proposed the theory of the photoelectric effect in 1905, describing the phenomenon in which an electron can be pulled out of an atom after being struck by light. In 1999, Ahmed Zevail, an Egyptian chemist, used ultrashort laser pulses to observe how atoms change shape. Zweil, who was going to win the Nobel Prize for his research, measured these small changes in femtoseconds; Femotoseconds are tenths of a billionth of a second.
Now, scientists at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin, and DESY, a particle accelerator in Hamburg, have measured a short period of time. Their results were published in Science Journal on 16 Oct. Were published.
The researchers fired X-rays at a hydrogen atom from a Petra III accelerator, which is made up of two protons and two electrons. Scientists say they use a particle of light or a photon to allow electrons to travel freely. They then used rapid explosions from another nearby infrared laser to detect subsequent interactions.
When a photon hits a hydrogen atom, it first emits one electron and then another rapidly releases gravel on the surface. The effect produced waves in what became known as the “interference pattern” that allowed scientists to measure precisely the way electrons were emitted.
“When we got to know the spatial orientation of a hydrogen atom, the photon reached the first and when it reached the second hydrogen atom, we calculated the interference of two electron waves precisely,” said Ph.D. The Goethe University candidate, whose essay is the basis of the new study, said in a statement.
According to Grudman, it took 247 zeptoseconds for a photon to cross a hydrogen atom, although according to Grudman, there is little difference in how far apart the atoms in the hydrogen atom are when it is hit by a photon.
“We have observed for the first time that the electron shell in an atom does not react to light everywhere at once,” Reinhard Durner, a professor of atomic physics at Goethe, said in a statement. “Time is delayed because the information inside the atom only spreads at the speed of light.”
