Time

For humans, time moves by the heartbeat; beyond that, it is the motions of our planet that count out the hours, days, and years that eventually define our lifetimes. Beyond the few thousands of years of history behind us, those years-to-the-powers-of-tens that are the fare for such fields as evolutionary biology, geology, and cosmology, cease to convey any real meaning for us. Perhaps this is why so many people are not very inclined to accept their validity.

Figure 1.1: Time scales used from atomic to cosmic levels. Note that the numeric scale represents the logarithm of the number shown.

Most of what actually takes place in the chemist’s test tube operates on a far shorter time scale, although there is no limit to how slow a reaction can be; the upper limits of those we can directly study in the lab are in part determined by how long a graduate student can wait around before moving on to gainful employment. Looking at the microscopic world of atoms and molecules themselves, the time scale again shifts us into an unreal world where numbers tend to lose their meaning. You can gain some appreciation of the duration of a nanosecond by noting that this is about how long it takes a beam of light to travel between your two outstretched hands. In a sense, the material foundations of chemistry itself are defined by time: neither a new element nor a molecule can be recognized as such unless it lasts around sufficiently long enough to have its “picture” taken through measurement of its distinguishing properties.