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:
“Whoever neglects the arts when he is young has lost the past and is dead to the future.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“Once upon a time we were all born,
popped out like jelly rolls
forgetting our fishdom,
the pleasuring seas,
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spanked into the oxygens of death....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)