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In physics and the philosophy of science, instant refers to an
infinitesimal In mathematics, an infinitesimal number is a quantity that is closer to zero than any standard real number, but that is not zero. The word ''infinitesimal'' comes from a 17th-century Modern Latin coinage ''infinitesimus'', which originally ref ...
interval in time, whose passage is instantaneous. In ordinary speech, an instant has been defined as "a point or very short space of time," a notion deriving from its etymological source, the Latin verb ''instare'', from ''in-'' + ''stare'' ('to stand'), meaning 'to stand upon or near.' The continuous nature of time and its infinite divisibility was addressed by Aristotle in his '' Physics'', where he wrote on Zeno's paradoxes. The philosopher and mathematician
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ar ...
was still seeking to define the exact nature of an instant thousands of years later. , the smallest time interval certify in regulated measurements is on the order of 397 zeptoseconds (397 × 10−21 seconds).


See also

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Infinitesimal In mathematics, an infinitesimal number is a quantity that is closer to zero than any standard real number, but that is not zero. The word ''infinitesimal'' comes from a 17th-century Modern Latin coinage ''infinitesimus'', which originally ref ...
*
Present The present (or here'' and ''now) is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly and in the first time, not as a recollection (perceived more than once) or a speculation (predicted, hypothesis, uncertain). It is a period of ...


References

Time {{time-stub