Comments on: 1,000,000,000th Of A Second

By: Bobby Lee

Bobby Lee — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 03:20:36 +0000

Uh-Oh Hot Dog!

By: Andy @ Yellow Swordfish

Andy @ Yellow Swordfish — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 16:07:04 +0000

It’s all those people who are convinced they are right that amuses me. Some of them are so dogmatic and unimaginative. And of course, if they ploughed through all of the comments they would find they have nothing new to add and that yes… they ARE wrong.

By: rachelelizabeth

rachelelizabeth — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:13:54 +0000

I think it’s great that you don’t let them discourage you. i thought the article was great. i actually enjoyed science.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:23:37 +0000

@ jake3988

You are also completely off. It has been explained over and over again: this camera used a polarized lens and can get shots of 10 nanoseconds. Try using Google.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:08:46 +0000

@ jay

Dude, it has already been explained: this camera uses a polarized lens, NOT A SHUTTER. THAT MEANS IT CAN GET INSANE SHUTTER SPEEDS. YOUR MATH IS IRRELEVANT.

By: Jay

Jay — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:56:22 +0000

The billionth of a second thing sounds a little bit – No, extremely – illogical.

Suppose that the circumference of the lens of the camera was 2 inches. I would assume that it was larger than that for this camera, but for the sake of argument, let’s say it was 2 inches. For the shutter to cover 2 inches in 1 billionth of a second (0.000000001 seconds), it would have to be moving at 166,666,666 feet per second. That’s about 1/6th of the speed of light (983,571,056 ft/s), or 113,636,363 MPH. The fastest known shutter speed of any camera is 1/4000 of a second (0.00025 s) by the CP5000 from Nikon. The lens circumference of this camera is 3.34645669 inches. For the shutter to move those 3.34645669 inches in those 0.00025 seconds, it would have had to be moving at 1115.4 feet per second.

TL;DR -
Fastest shutter speed ever recorder of a camera: 1115.4 feet per second.
Alleged shutter speed of Harold Edgerton’s camera: 166,666,666 feet per second.
(The one billionth of a second part can not be true.)

Please feel free to check my math.

By: Andy @ Yellow Swordfish

Andy @ Yellow Swordfish — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:52:19 +0000

@lee said: ‘why didnt u correct the last sentence typo? “In another millionth of a second” should be in another milisecond or thousandth of a second’..
What? And spoil all the fun? You have a point but some of the discussion that ensued was quite fascinating. See Ozzy’s comment here…

By: Ozzy

Ozzy — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:04:16 +0000

I must admit, this has been the most entertaining 30 minutes I’ve had in a long time. Andy, I bet you never imagined the simple posting of a few pics would generate the intellectual and emotional ramblings that it did. The pics were a great find, thank you. The comments are an eye-opening window into the state of humanity.

By: lee

lee — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:44:02 +0000

@Andy, why didnt u correct the last sentence typo? “In another millionth of a second” should be in another milisecond or thousandth of a second

And one more thing: this is internet, where intelligent and ignorant people meet and trade information. so i think you should try to make your post as informative as possible, explaining 1,000,000,000th of a second is referrering to the shutter speed or exposure time, because not everyone know about it. if u had done that, all this discussion would be minimized for sure…

By: sabik7

sabik7 — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:55:09 +0000

Note to self…Next time I take a photo of a nuclear explosion don’t tell anybody.