One of the fundamental mysteries surrounding the concept of time is whether it’s continuous and our chronological measurements are just a way of making the sense of the world, or if it actually breaks down into discrete “ticks” at the teeniest scales.
Assuming the
latter is true — Live
Science reports that our technology
isn’t yet nearly sensitive enough to find out for sure — a team of physicists
from Penn State has now theorized the absolute maximum amount of time that a
universal oscillation could take.
Don’t Blink
The number is
bafflingly small. The largest possible value this fundamental unit of time
could be is one-thousandth of a quectosecond, according
to research published last month in the journal Physical
Review Letters. That’s ten to the -33rd power or, as Live Science helpfully
put it, just one-millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a
second.
And that’s just
the upper limit, based on the performance of the best
atomic clocks we have. In the abstract world of mathematical
theory, Live Science reports the absolute smallest unit of
time could be yet another 100 billion times shorter.
Syncing Up
The best atomic
clocks can measure down to a tenth of a billionth of a billionth of a second,
or ten to the -19th power, Live Science reports. If the
fundamental unit of time were any larger, it would eventually make our atomic
clocks fall out of sync.
But this is all theory. As atomic clocks improve, scientists may find themselves exploring smaller and smaller units of time before they ever hit a wall — and time may be truly continuous, rather than discrete.
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