Absolution

The human fetish for absolute precision is the same, in many respects, as the scientist’s yearning to chill an object to absolute zero. The thing that prevents it—time—is the one absolutely necessary thing that gets in the way, as the air we breathe prevents us from seeing objects in the far distance absolutely clearly. Not that time is a medium, of course, whatever this analogy suggests. We do not ‘swim in time as a carp swims in water’. Not in the least. Indeed, one thumbnail definition of time might well be: time is that which prevents everything from being at absolute zero. Savingly so.