(Roughly) Daily

Sounds like a Zen riddle…  but turns out that researchers at the Max Planck Institute have actually answered it, with results that look like this:

Image of a pulse of light that is 2.5 billionths of a millionth of a second long (Image: Science)

The full story from New Scientist (spoiler alert– it involves using the shortest-ever flash of light, 80 attoseconds [billionths of a billionth of a second] long), is here.

As we adjust our exposures, we might create photo cards for two extraordinary women born on this date:  writer and activist Emma Goldman (1869) and teacher, social worker, and writer Helen Keller (1880).

The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.
-Emma Goldman

All wars are wars among thieves who are too cowardly to fight and who therefore induce the young manhood of the whole world to do the fighting for them.
-Helen Keller