Stoney— The known part of Nature’s Work. 93 
One of the conveniences of the proposed way of representing 
time is its perfect flexibility. In each investigation we may select 
as our unit of time that of the whole decimal series which happens 
to be the most convenient to use in the investigation. In the 
above-mentioned inquiry it happened that a relatively large unit 
was the most convenient. In other inquiries the micron, which is 
100 times briefer, is a more convenient unit, and in some few, in 
which very much smaller periods of time were under consideration, 
he has employed the tenth-metret of time. 
The micron of time is the XIV* (fourteenthet) of the third 
of a second, that is the 300th part of the billionth of a second. 
To magnify it till it becomes one second of time is the same 
process as to magnify the fifth part of the thousandth of a second 
until it becomes 1900 years, 7. e. the whole duration of the Chris- 
tian era. It is instructive to bear this in mind when dealing with 
molecular events. 
In dealing with molecular events, it is well to conceive a mag- 
nified model of what is really going on, in which all lengths are 
so enlarged, and all times so much prolonged, as to bring both 
within the range of what we can conveniently perceive. In order 
to do this, the magnification with respect to time will need to be 
greater than that with respect to space. A good magnification for 
many purposes is a magnification of all lengths by a uno-ten, and 
a magnification of the durations by either three or six uno-fourteens.' 
(See Scientific Proceedings R. D.S., vol. viii., p. 872; or Philo- 
sophical Magazine for October, 1895, p. 381.) 
1 The magnification of molecular intervals by a uno-ten may be called standard 
magnification of molecular events; because it means the representing of molecular 
events which require to be recorded in Group D by a model of them so large that it 
records them in the corresponding parts of Group C, the group of magnitudes with 
which we are most familiar. 
The magnification of the durations by 3. XIV (three uno-fourteens) means that 
each micron of time becomes a second, so that an event in the molecular world 
which occupies a fraction of a micron of time is represented by an event of the same 
kind in our model which occupies the same fraction of a second. This, in the case of 
a great number of molecular events, brings the events occurring in the model within 
the range of human perceptions. If the time magnification is by 6. XIV (six uno- 
fourteens), a molecular event that occupies some fraction of a micron of time is represented 
by an event in the model which occupies the same fraction of two seconds; and 
this is sometimes convenient where we wish to compare molecular motions with the 
motions of pendulums or of the limbs of animals, since a pendulum which beats 
seconds is one whose periodic time is two seconds. 
