Time is familiar but also a mystery, for without it all the processes in the universe could not happen. Without time, you could not move your eyes from one word to another as you read this sentence.

Time can be divided into many categories ? attoseconds, femtoseconds, picoseconds, nanoseconds, microseconds, milliseconds and seconds.

A healthy person's heartbeat lasts about one second. In the same time it takes for a heart to beat once, Earth travels 30 kilometres around the sun, while the sun travels 275 kilometres on its path through the universe. Light takes 1.3 seconds to reach us from the moon.

There are sixty seconds in one minute. In one minute a newborn baby grows about one milligram. A shrew's heart beats 1000 times. Light from the sun reaches us in about eight minutes (when the sun is at its closest), while sunlight takes about four minutes to reach us from Mars.

Sixty minutes in one hour ? the time it takes for a reproducing cell to divide.

Time is divided into larger divisions too ? days, weeks, months and years. A year is the time it takes for the Earth to circle the sun once, a month is the time the moon takes to turn completely once, a day is the time it takes for the Earth to turn completely once ? but where do weeks come from?

Weeks are not based on any astronomical events. They were given to us by God, in Genesis. It took God one week to create the universe, and Mankind.

Richard Gunther, Copyright 2005