Places with time

Although several new terms have been introduced on this blog (see glossary here), more are needed. For every concept and term about space there is a corresponding concept, and should be a corresponding term, about time.

A place is “a particular portion of space, whether of definite or indefinite extent”. The corresponding term is a time; however time is ambiguous because of its various other meanings. For a temporal version of place, I suggest plime, from pl(ace) + (t)ime. So plime means “a particular portion of time, whether of definite or indefinite extent”.

A spatial location is a locus (pl. loci), which is a particular position, point, or place. It also refers to the set of all spatial points whose location is determined by specified conditions. As locus is the Latin word for “a place or spot” so the corresponding term for time would be tempus (pl. tempora), which is the Latin term for “time”. In that case, tempus means a temporal location, or the set of all instants whose location is determined by specified conditions.

A polarity chron, or chron, is the time interval between polarity reversals of Earth’s magnetic field. Let’s generalize this to define a chron as a time interval or a region of time. Chron is from the Latinized form of Greek khronos, which means “time” or “a time”.

An event is the term that refers to a portion of space during a portion of time, or a particular portion of space and time. That is, an event is something that occurs in a particular place and a particular plime.

A odologe (o′∙do∙loge) is a device that measures 1D distance continuously. From Greek odo(s), way/path/road + (horo)loge, clock.

I’ll add these terms to the glossary above.