Attosecond is ridiculous

The Nobel Prize in physics was awarded this week to scientists for their studies that resulted in new tools for exploring the movement of electrons inside atoms and molecules, a phenomenon that was long thought impossible to trace.

Changes in electrons occur in a few tenths of an attosecond, which is a unit of time…

Buckle up for this one.

… a unit of time so short that there are as many attoseconds in one second as there have been seconds since the birth of the universe.

When I told this to Charlie, he stared at me for a moment, then said, “Say that again.”

I did. I’ll say it again for you, too:

There are as many attoseconds in one single second as there have been seconds since the birth of the universe.

When I repeated this to Charlie, he said, “Give me a few minutes to wrap my mind around that.”

I’m not sure if he’s managed to do so, but I certainly haven’t. Somehow, some way, scientists have discovered a means of measuring the movement of electrons in units of time so small that there are more of them in a single second than seconds that have ever existed in the history of the universe.

Science is sometimes unfathomable.

Scientists sometimes seem more like wizards than people of great learning and knowledge.

Also, my brain still hurts just thinking about attoseconds.