One second

 How would you define and/or measure ‘one second’ – the unit of time – if you didn’t have your handy, dandy stopwatch on your iPhone…or any clock for that matter?  One could say that they would just take 1/60th of 1/60th of 1/24th of ‘one day’, which is one full rotation of the earth – the only problem is, the rotation of the earth changes slowly over time – that is, it’s getting slower.  So much so that every so often a “leap second” is added to our electronic-based time keeping.  Since 1972, there have been 27 leap seconds added to our time keeping devices, which is nearly one every year!  Thus, unconventional, or more abstract measurements of time must be sought after since the very astronomical basis from which we traditionally derive time units is variable on a large scale.  Therefore, scientists turned not to the large scale, but to the incredibly small scale – quite literally the atomic scale – to help us most accurately define time. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, in 1967 defined “one second” as follows: “the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom.”  Now we can know EXACTLY ‘when’ we are, though we may not know exactly ‘where’ we are.  The idea is that often the smallest of things, trifles, trivialities, minutia of details and the like help us keep track of and make sense of the biggest realities.  This is true whether we are speaking of physical realities or metaphysical principles.  I’m afraid the ancient aphorism that “the devil’s in the details” is quite the inverse of the truth.  Apparently God is in the details.  “With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus” (Luke 1:3)