In simple language, a chronon is the smallest, discrete, non-decomposable unit of time.
It is continuity that enables modern mathematics to surmount the paradox of extension framed by the pre-Socratic eleatic Zeno—a paradox comprising the question of how a finite interval can be made up of dimensionless points or instants.
[2] Henry Margenau in 1950 suggested that the chronon might be the time for light to travel the classical radius of an electron.
Consequently, the value of the chronon, like other quantized observables in quantum mechanics, is a function of the system under consideration, particularly its boundary conditions.
Caldirola claims that the chronon has important implications for quantum mechanics, in particular that it allows for a clear answer to the question of whether a free-falling charged particle does or does not emit radiation.