Arbitrary Time

The basic unit of time is the second (all other measurements being multiples in one way or the other). What is a second? A second is sixtieth of a minute, which is a sixtieth of an hour, which is one twenty-forth of a day, etc. More precisely, it is equal to 9,192,631,770 cycles of radiation in a change in energy level of the cesium atom. Indubitably, the measurements are completely arbitrary; if there were only thirteen hours in a day, for example, the second would be nominally obsolete. Standards of time, however, were not conceived as constants of the universe; rather, their purpose was to synchronize people, normalize measurements, and place events in a relative sequence. For present considerations, this nomenclature is sufficient. Moreover, it reveals several interesting assumptions.