What about units of time that are shorter than one second? This topic enters the realm of physics and some of these units are used as measurements of half-life of elements and the amount of time it takes to do things that people don't ordinarily think about. Here are some definitions:
Centisecond – 1/100 of a second – the length of time a single frame is displayed on a tv
Millisecond – 1/1000 second – a blink of an eye
Microsecond – a millionth of a second
Shake – about 10 nanoseconds – the time it takes a lamb to shake its tail
Nanosecond – a billionth of a second – light travels about a foot in one of these
Picosecond – a trillionth
Femtosecond – a quadrillionth
Attosecond – a quintillionth
Zeptosecond – a sextillionth
Yoctosecond – a septillionth
Planck time – This is the smallest unit. It is the time it would take a photon traveling at the speed of light to go the distance equal to a Planck length. It is the "quantum of time", the smallest measurement of time that has any meaning, and is equal to 10 to the minus 43 seconds. A Planck length is the "quantum of length", the smallest measurement of length with any meaning. It is about 10 to the minus 20 times the size of a proton. It would take a bit of study in physics to understand what this really means.
And a few more second-based time units that are larger than a second. By anyone's reckoning, some of these have not yet happened even once.
Kilosecond – 1000 seconds – 16.7 minutes
Megasecond – 1,000,000 seconds – 11.6 days
Gigasecond – 1 billion seconds – 32 years
Terasecond – 1 trillion seconds – 32,000 years
Petasecond – 1 quadrillion seconds – 32 million years
Exasecond – 1 quintillion seconds - 32 billion years
Zettasecond – 1 sextillion seconds - 32 trillion years
Yottaseonds – 1 septillion seconds - 32 quadrillion years
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment