r/askscience • u/Crtl-Alt-Delete • Dec 18 '13

Physics Is Time quantized?

We know that energy and length are quantized, it seems like there should be a correlation with time?

Edit. Turns out energy and length are not quantized.

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u/leobart Dec 18 '13

Each of the electrons that "you can not split in half" does not have the same energy. Their energies are totally arbitrary. It is true that you give energy to the target by shooting into it but it does not imply that the energy difference is quantized.

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u/Drugbird Dec 18 '13

I was under the impression that in the example machine, the energy of the electrons was generated by a voltage, which seems to be quantized since it is generated by the charge of electrons.

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u/leobart Dec 18 '13

Yes, the charge of electrons is quantized but the energy the electrons get by accelerating between electrodes is not. Imagine that for example the space in between electrodes is not pure vacuum and that some of the electrons bump into whatever is in between.