You may not have to wait for your water to boil in the future, because the researchers at the Hamburg Center for Free-Electron Laser Science in Germany have figured out a way to boil it at 600 degrees Celsius in less than a trillionth of a second.

To give you some perspective - one picasecond is a second to what one second is to 32,000 years.

The technique used special lasers that send electrons hurdling down a zig-zag course that emit electromagnetic waves. When the terahertz blast hits water molecules, it causes them to intensely vibrate, resulting in a near instant boil.

For now, the method is just in theory. It has only been tested in supercomputer simulations, so some real equipment is needed to put this to the test. [Wiley Online Library via DESY via Popular Science]