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:
“I began to realize that it was bigotry of the worst kind to say that it’s better to be dead than to be born retarded or blind or without a limb. It’s a value judgment you’re making about someone’s life, based on their degree of perfection.”
—Juli Loesch (b. c. 1953)
“How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)