Cause and Effect

How long is the time elapse between the initiation of a cause and the resulting effect?  Are there any intermediate causes and effects in between, and if there are, what is the time elapse between the start of the intermediate cause and the ending intermediate effect?  If the answer is that the intervening time is infinite, then how and when can the effect from the cause eventfully occur if the time goes on indefinitely?

If the answer is that the time is not really infinite, but is the shortest time possible; then, that should extrapolate to  traveling the shortest distance possible.  Ok then, is the shortest time the amount of time it takes a Higgs bosom to appear and then disappear; and is the shortest distance the width of the space occupied by the Higgs bosom?  Or maybe the elapsed time is the time it takes a string in string theory to vibrate once its entire length, and the distance is the width, or possibly, the length of the string? Or, maybe half of the string. It could also be some other divisible portion of the string.

It has been postulated that strings can be of different lengths and vibrate differently to make up different elements.  Are the shorter ones made of the same material as the longer ones? And what material do they consist of?  Is there a time lapse between the time that one end of the string begins a vibration cycle and the time that the vibration reaches the other end?  If there is no intervening time – then, there can be no vibration because it would have had to start and stop at exactly same time and cover no distance.

Because of this, I am tempted to believe in free will.