# Smallest Possible Music Note + Planck Time

The Smallest music note you'll likely see on sheet music is the 16th note.

2 connected 16th notes: Image

What if we went even further down the line of faster notes?

Planck time is defined as the time it takes for light to travel 1 Planck distance (L) or $≈ 5.4xE-44$ sec.

There are more units of planck time in a second than there are seconds since the big bang: image

I'll assume one half note is equal to 1 second, and that each further note takes half the time to play as the last. With this in mind I

get the equation:

$\frac{1}{2^{x}} \ge 5.4xE-44$

$X ≈ 144$

That's a $\frac{1}{2^{145}}$th note. Imagine a note with 144 flags on it!!!

a 64th note with 4 flags: image

We can go smaller and faster but it would make no difference since the human brain won't be able to determine beats faster than around a 32nd note.

Note by Brack Harmon
2 years, 8 months ago

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For a sixteenth note, there are many periods of sinusoidal vibration of the air within that single note. Presumably, the shortest possible note would have to be multiple planck lengths long, in order to allow for some sort of vibration. Interesting idea.

- 2 years, 8 months ago