@scalzi I enjoyed your story, Mr #Scalzi, as I often do.
Now, to ENTIRELY dodge the actual point of the story, I’m going to share my journey of where I was #nerdsniped into looking at the time ratios in it. (John knew someone would do this, I’m sure 🙂)
Be warned: there is no actual point or insight gained from this; it’s just a small mathematical journey I took. John’s chosen time periods are story devices, not mathematical or real-world entities.
As well as the titular time periods of about 0.008 years, ¾ year, and 27 years (which we are clearly told are approximate), we are also informed that resonances exist at about 1 second, 810 years and 243,000 years.
Neat ones first:
The 27:810 years ratio is 30.
The 810:243000 years ratio is 300.
The nice round figures break mildly for the 9 month:27 year ratio, which is 36 (but remember the values are approximate anyway.)
The 3 day:9 month ratio is a bit over 90 (≈91.3).
And finally, the 1 second:3 day ratio is roughly 300000 (exact value is 259,200).
So: HUGE leap from 1 second to 3 days, quite smooth regression of leaps in the 3 day, 9 month, 27 years, 810 years section (≈90, 36, 30 times), and then a biggish leap (300×) to 243000 years.
Plotted on a log scale, you get this kind of S bend. Without having done any further math, if asked to extrapolate, it wouldn’t surprise me if the next smaller time was in the order of the Planck time, and the next biggest in the order of the age of the universe.
(That’s the end of the post; told you there wasn’t any real point!)