Few weeks ago I read how many clocks in central Europe have been running slow. This is caused because of a feud over electricity between Serbia and Kosovo, as a result this has caused the frequency of electricity to drop from steady 50Hz to 49,995Hz. Which then caused devices to be about 5 minutes late around Europe.

This observation works as a loose transition to Finland where we have the “Official time of Finland”. This absolute of time is ran by VTT Laboratories near Helsinki. Where Russian built atomic devices measure the frequency of caesium and hydrogen atoms and the signal is transformed into our concept of time. Such devices are supposedly wrong one second in 100 000 years which is quite an unfathomable idea. Naturally these machines need constant maintenance, so 100 000 years turns out to be six months.

While I was visiting the laboratory, the scientists were enthusiasted, that somebody was interested in their work and I got to wander around their facility. I found the mass laboratory to be the most unique experience for me. As more and more of the SI-system is derived from invariant constants of nature, the kilogram is so to speak the last of the mohicans as a physical object. Of course this causes problems, because the cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy seems to be losing mass over time. And this is a problem when making science. In the lab I had a talk with the leading scientist of the department, he had worked there for five years and had never seen the actual copy made of the original French kilogram prototype. The “Finnish kilogram” was kept in a safe two meters from his workstation and he had no access to it.  He said “It is a matter of faith, that it is there, and it actually weights one kilogram”.

It felt strange to hear such words in that setting, but his statement summed up what science is about. Finding truths about how things are, not what they look to be, but also acknowledging it is just the current perception of reality. With a little bit of faith.