ABSTRACT
What we think about when we think about time There are great stone monuments aligned with the solstice around the world, shrouded today in myth and folklore, marking time in vast chunks of rock. Accurate clocks were invented not for the mantelpiece, but for seafarers to be able to navigate the globe with more judgement than luck. Watchmakers produced clockwork of beautifully intricate cogs just to carve the days into fractions of 12ths and 60ths and then 60ths again. Scientists have measured the age of the Universe in billions of years; Einstein’s relativity has time stretch and warp depending on gravity and velocity, and your point of view. Time is a very, very deep concept, and it flows around us every day. It is difficult or even impossible to fully understand, yet language has some neat, simple variations that enable all of us to communicate about time in all its minute grandeur.
