The quadrillionth quadrille
Chemical reactions happen in mind-bogglingly short spans of time. But not so short that science cannot capture them
|PASADENA
IMAGINE five minutes. Now imagine the age of the universe (about 15 billion years, in case it had slipped your mind). In this context five minutes is almost too trivial to measure. Compared with the length of time it takes for two molecules to react together, though, five minutes is as long as the universe has existed.
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