How far can light travel in one attosecond?
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ANSWERS: 2
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If the readers on this site are anything like me their first question is "what is an attosecond?" The answer to that is 1 quintillionth of a second or 1 x10^-18 in scientific notation. Knowing that the speed of light is 300 million meters per second. We find that light travels, .0000000001 meters in an attosecond. That is .1 nanometers. In one attosecond a light would only travel the length of three hydrogen attoms. Basically, light is really ridiculously fast, an attosecond is a ridiculously small amount of time. The attosecond's magnitude just happens to be more ridiculous so light doesn't get very far at all in your scenario. Hope this helps. Short answer: 0.1 nanometers.
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1) "1 attosecond is 10−^18 seconds "1 attosecond is the time it takes for light to travel the length of three hydrogen atoms." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attosecond 2) "the speed of light in vacuum [is] exactly 299 792 458 m/s" Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light As a conclusion, in one second, in vacuum, light travels 299 792 458 * 10−^18 m Those are about: 0.3 * 10−^9 m = 0.3 nm [nanometers]
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