This article appeared on Nov. 22, 2000, in "Beachcomber," a regular column in The London Express.

Seuen and Forty Attomos

Forty-seven is, as I have mentioned before, a number of many remarkable properties. Quite apart from being the age of our Prime Minister, it is, among other things, the number of strings on a harp, seats in the Kazakhstan senate, sounds in the Japanese language, sentences in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and footballers in the English League whose first name is Kevin. It is also a number that occurs in almost every episode of Star Trek, thanks for the fact that one of the scriptwriters went to Pomona College, California (which you reach by taking exit 47 on the San Bernardino Freeway), where the cult of 47-worship originated.

Last Wednesday, however (just 47 days before the new year, I might add), I made a discovery that casts an unexpected and momentous light on the number 47. The revelation came to me

as I was looking up the word "moment" in the Oxford English Dictionary, with the aim of finding out why a moment of time is so small, while momentous events are so big. One of the meanings listed under "Moment" was: "In mediaeval reckoning, the tenth part of a 'point' (see POINT n.1. A.10), the 40th or 50th part of an hour."

I hurried to POINT n.1 A.10, where I read: "In mediaeval measurement of time: The fourth (or according to some, the fifth) part of an hour. (See ATOM n.7.)"

Suddenly I realized how unjustly I have judged shop assistants who say "I'll be with you in a moment" then keep me waiting for between 12 and 15 minutes. They are clearly simply confusing "moment" with "point". Making a mental note to correct them the next time it happened, I hastened to look up ATOM n.7. And there I learnt the extraordinary truth. An atom was the smallest of all mediaeval measures of time, being equal to 15 ninety-fourths of a modern second. The entry even gave a table of time units from an ancient French encyclopaedia: There are five points in an hour, two ancient minutes in a point, four moments in an ancient minute, one-and-a-half ostents in a moment, eight ounces in an ostent... and... finally we get to the nub of the matter... there are 47 atoms in one ounce of time.

The OED goes on to confirm that this is not merely French affectation. For as John of Trevisa wrote in his celebrated 1398 translation of Bartholomeus's De Proprietatibus Rerum (Of The Properties Of Things): "An vnce of tyme conteynyth seuen and forty attomos."

So the number 47 lies at the very basis of time itself. But how did these ancient writers settle on that particular number? I turned immediately to the Things section of my library, but suddenly remembered I had lent my copy of De Proprietatibus Rerum to Minimus to form part of his table-tennis net. (The vellum binding of mediaeval books takes spin in a way that modern publishers cannot match.) I shall report back when he has finished with it.