Time

What is time? We have learned to measure it, dividing seconds into nanoseconds with ultra-precise atomic clocks, counting hyperfine transitions of Caesium 133. Time is also a call to action—maybe it's time for a cup of tea. Maybe it's time to go to bed, or for alarms to go off for sleepers, as it's time for school or work.

Cycles of a work week: Monday to Friday, maybe come in on Saturday too. Internet time with synchronised cell-phones. Time to urgently go to the hospital, as pregnant mothers are reaching the time for birthing new babies. Time to be born, to live, and time to die.

Time cycles around and around the clock face, hands passing over hands, all around the town—a multitude of clocks metering out a precious commodity. Time moves faster in orbit around the Earth so relativity theory says. Everything must be adjusted to cope with that. How long to cook the ready meals in the oven? Look carefully as time in minutes is marked conveniently on the packaging.

Animal time, to eat or sleep. Cycles of animal hormones in a circadian rhythm. Time for a solar eclipse somewhere, or for the low and high tides, or for the moon forever waxing and waning.

Lovers timing when things work out just right. Time for kisses in the cinema, holding hands at the start of romance, holding hands again years later during the sparkle of a diamond wedding anniversary.

Time rolling around: silly youngsters rolling down the grassy hill, and playing, with no need to check their watches.

Now going backwards, entropy falling, as eggs un-break themselves into the fridge, as elderly people turn youthful, only to become babies, and then it's back to the womb to become a single cell once again.