Congratulations to the laser physicists at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ), the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) Munich who have now measured an event for the first time with zeptosecond precision. You have taken my mind off the pending outcome of a particularly nasty presidential election in the United States and caused me to think about quantum reactions in 10-21 s. And here I was cogitating on those slow reactions in attoseconds (10-18 s).
Just yesterday, I was wondering how I should address femtosecond laser technology (10-15 s) in the annual economic review of industrial laser material processing that will be reported in the January/February 2017 issue of ILS. Goodness, buggy-whip technology.
Thanks, guys—in spite of the election outcome, there is something more important to be thinking about tomorrow morning.