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10 nanoseconds, also a casual term for a short period of time. microsecond: 10 −6 s: One millionth of a second. Symbol is μs millisecond: 10 −3 s: One thousandth of a second. Shortest time unit used on stopwatches. jiffy (electronics) ~ 10 −3 s: Used to measure the time between alternating power cycles. Also a casual term for a short ...
A chronon is a proposed quantum of time, that is, a discrete and indivisible "unit" of time as part of a hypothesis that proposes that time is not continuous.In simple language, a chronon is the smallest, discrete, non-decomposable unit of time.
(but not necessarily the shortest increment of time—see quantum gravity) 10 −14 qs: The length of one Planck time (t P = / ≈ 5.39 × 10 −44 s) [3] is the briefest physically meaningful span of time. It is the unit of time in the natural units system known as Planck units. 10 −30: quectosecond: qs
One of the earliest occurrences of the word "atom" to mean the smallest possible unit of measuring time is found in the Greek text of the New Testament in Paul's 1 Corinthians 15:52. The text compares the length of time of the “atom” to the time needed for "the twinkling of an eye."
In the International System of Units (SI), the unit of time is the second (symbol: s). It has been defined since 1967 as "the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom", and is an SI base unit. [12]
Planck time (~ 5.4 × 10 −44 seconds) is the unit of time in the system of natural units known as Planck units. Current established physical theories are believed to fail at this time scale, and many physicists expect that the Planck time might be the smallest unit of time that could ever be measured, even in principle.
The earliest technical usage for jiffy was defined by Gilbert Newton Lewis (1875–1946). He proposed in 1926 a unit of time called the "jiffy" which was equal to the time it takes light to travel one centimeter in vacuum (approximately 33.3564 picoseconds). [5]
For nuclear-bomb designers, the term was a convenient name for the short interval, rounded to 10 nanoseconds, which was frequently seen in their measurements and calculations: The typical time required for one step in a chain reaction (i.e. the typical time for each neutron to cause a fission event, which releases more neutrons) is of the order of 1 shake, and a chain reaction is typically ...