Twice a year, we get a chance to ponder the meaning of time during the rituals of shifting between daylight and standard time, but Boulder author and illustrator Steve Jenkins took that one step further.
“This time of year, you think about how we measure time because the days are so short,” said Jenkins, whose latest book, “Just a Second,” examines and quantifies the many ways that time is measured.
For example, in one second:
“A vulture in flight flaps its wings once; a pygmy shrew’s heart beats 10 times; a hummingbird beats its wings 50 times; a bumblebee beats its wings 200 times; a midge (a kind of gnat) beats its wings 1,000 times; a rattlesnake shakes its tail in warning 60 times; a woodpecker hammers a tree trunk with its beak 20 times.”
If that surprises people who share the neighborhood with woodpeckers — only 20 times per second? That’s all? — Jenkins might remind them that perception has a lot to do with the passage of time.
After all, it takes a peregrine falcon one second to dive 300 feet, but it takes a minute for a three-toed sloth to drag itself about 10 feet — roughly the same pace of a starfish, which travels 30 feet in an hour.
“When I was researching, I did a lot of reading that was beyond me,” he said. “Nobody really knows what time is. There are different theories about other dimensions and whether we’re just experiencing a little slice of time. Clearly, time has a direction, unlike physical dimensions. It creates all kinds of interesting conundrums.”
Claire Martin: 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com
