Acid-base chemistry, very fast chemical reactions

The dramatic way in which research chemists have recently discarded the apology that reactions such as acid-base neutralization are immeasurably fast or instantaneous should compel the attention of every student of chemistry. Developments in electronics during and since World War II have made the long needed snapshots of simple instantaneous chemical processes possible. However, if we do not bother with the distinction between fast and very fast chemical reactions, those having half-lives greater and less than 10 sec, respectively, the study of fast chemical reactions is a comparatively old one as topics in physical chemistry go. 

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