For detection systems that record discrete events, such as particle and nuclear detectors, the dead time is the time after each event during which the system is not able to record another event. An everyday life example of this is what happens when someone takes a photo using a flash - another picture cannot be taken immediately afterward because the flash needs a few seconds to recharge. In addition to lowering the detection efficiency, dead times can have other effects, such as creating possible exploits in quantum cryptography.
Read more about Dead Time: Overview, Paralyzable and Non-paralyzable Behaviour, Analysis, Time-To-Count
Famous quotes containing the words dead and/or time:
“Power? It’s like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there is nothing there.”
—Harold MacMillan (1894–1986)
“Lest darkness fall and time fall
In a long night when learned arteries
Mounting the ice and sum of barbarous time
Shall yield, without essence, perfect accident.
We are the eyelids of defeated caves.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)