Phys10 - A brief history of making brief histories! Imaging molecules on femtosecond timescales

In femto-chemistry a primary goal is to follow the nuclear and electronic evolution of a molecule in time and space as it undergoes a chemical reaction. I will describe something called Coulomb explosion imaging. This method uses a femtosecond laser to blow up a molecule and by following the fragments, make an image of a molecule.  This is a bit like having a camera with a very fast shutter speed, in this case 10^-15 s. I will give a potted history of this method with some digressions and describe some nice recent results.