From a reader’s suggestion: “Keeping Time”. “We have learned to measure time via a system that is

actually more accurate than the phenomena, the events and the

movements that gave rise to it namely the movements of the earth, the

rotation and revolution of the earth. We’ve got the calendar pinpointed,

tuned so perfectly that we can refer it to the oscillation of a caesium

atom in the National Bureau of Standards. I like to think we’ve gone

about as far as we can go. Our shortest unit of time the femtosecond , a

very valid unit to be used in physics, is so small that if the distance

between the earth and the moon were a second the femtosecond would

be the width of a human hair. So maybe we haven’t stopped yet as long

as there are physical laboratories around the world we’ll probably just

keep splitting hairs won’t we.”