Monday, April 18, 2005
(5:59 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
I am a participant
Ben Wolfson is running a contest. Bitch PhD is co-sponsoring the contest just mentioned. I am participating in it.- For many millennia, man has tried to create ways to measure time. His continued failure to achieve this goal has led many to believe that it is impossible to achieve. In this essay, I will demonstrate (1) the history of previous attempts, (2) the reason for their failure, and (3) the means by which this long-standing ambition of man was finally satisfied.
- The earliest attempt to measure time was a sundial. This approach had many drawbacks. First, to see any movement of the shadow, you have to walk away and come back. Second, it did not work in all weather conditions. Third, the time was measured only indirectly -- you could infer from the movement of the shadow that a certain portion of a "day" had passed, but direct measurement of time was still not achieved. The same went for subsequent developments -- the clock, the watch, and other similar devices that have come down to us through the generations.
- All of these methods failed to measure time because they failed to gather time. They were equivalent to attempting to measure milk using the unit called the "glug," inferring from some secondary occurence that a particular amount of milk had been used -- when in reality, the best way to measure milk is to collect it into a receptical of known volume. Heretofore, no receptical for time has been developed.
- It is only with the development of the Internet that such a receptical has become available to man. Instead of being measured in such transitory units as "seconds" and all that other nonsense, time is now measured in permanently available quanities such as blog posts, blog comments, e-mails, and IM conversations. Instead of experiencing time as a passing thing, like a "glug" of milk, man can now feel the full weight of time, and everyone who cares to see it can look at the time congealed in various locations of the Internet.
In conclusion, man has finally achieved a millenia-old goal: measuring time. He previously had to rely on indirect methods of measurement, but now he can collect and ponder time using the technological advance called The internet. Who knows what man has up his sleeve next!
