Explained: Femtoseconds and attoseconds
Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - 05:00
in Physics & Chemistry
Back in the first half of the 20th century, when MIT's famed Harold "Doc" Edgerton was perfecting his system for capturing fast-moving events on film, the ability to observe changes unfolding at a scale of microseconds—millionths of a second—was considered a remarkable achievement. This led to now-famous images such as one of a bullet piercing an apple, captured in midflight.