I can accurately time out almost exactly one minute, anytime, anywhere.

Great. Now that I have your attention, keep that in mind when reading through a proof that may not be the most exciting thing ever. Please.

The concept of exactly timing out one minute is a good one, probably because it's the right unit of time measurement for a feasible but not boring completion: longer might be too difficult or boring to prove, while shorter might be too easy. I've noticed that for longer times, our internal chronograph functions best when left alone: A while back, I played a game that tracked the amount of time spent on it. As I saved, and viewed the amount of time that my overall time spent increased, I'd make a guess. Often I'd be exactly right within the minute, over a span of nearly an hour.


But, back to the problem of timing the minute: I set some terms for myself:
1. No counting. Counting is lame. I don't want to spend an eternity going 'one-mississippi-two-mississippi-three' until I get it down pat, either. Boring. And also easy to deviate from, if you start counting too rapidly or slowly.

2. No tapping/beats. To me, this is the same as counting. You just figure out how many beats there are in a minute at the tempo you like, and then count. Probably more accurate than counting, but no fun.

3. No external body movement. No rapping of fingers, tapping of toes. Same as 2.

4. No need for a 'blank' mind: I'm not looking for an internal clock that instinctively says: "That was a minute!" Partly because, while I think it's feasible, it's something that I can already partially do but also something I doubt I'd be able to improve very well.


So my game-plan was to find something that I could focus on mentally for exactly one minute that didn't involve counting. I settled on music. Obviously, I'm a very musical person and music speaks to me. So that was my angle. But I think this could work just as well with, say, a favorite scene from a film, or something like that.


I started looking through pieces that I knew *really* well, inside-and-out, front-and-back, enough that I could run through the piece in my head flawlessly. "Le Basque" was an encore piece used by the late great(est?) horn player Dennis Brain. Serendipitously enough, the recording I have of it times out to exactly one minute, minus applause.

(Consider this my gift to you for reading this far. Enjoy it, it's great.)

I began testing my theory by shutting my eyes, and without counting or tapping my toes, or swaying with the music, just letting it run in my head. My first two trials I was two seconds under, and the third I nailed exactly at one minute. Success.


Proof:

I probably made this more difficult than it needs to be. But I wanted to make it very clear that I could get damn close to timing a minute on a very regular basis. A wristwatch and shirt-sleeve might do the trick. But unfortunately I don't have a watch on me at the moment that has a timer, and the problem with my iPod is that I had a hard time photographing and filming the screen, because it was so bright. So, explanations of the videos, which may or may not be completely clear:

1. iPod: Timer on the iPod. Before I started the timer, I slipped a cover over it so I couldn't see the iPod. I noticed afterwards that there's a timer on the screen of my camera, but I had it covered during the filming and it's not relevant for two other reasons: 1. Didn't know exactly what the time was at when I started the iPod timer, and 2. Not an accurate measure of time: It probably averages off the file-size



2. Computer: Used an internet timer. Had ski-masks over my head so I couldn't see anything. No trickery afoot, I promise.



This may not be the most fascinating proof ever. But I think I've completed the task well and whether or not this receives a lot of attention or votes, I'm pleased with it. Thank you for this task, CE (and the creators of CE).


So now I have a convenient benchmark I can use whenever I want to time out exactly one minute, and it doesn't involve any 'menial labor.' I'm thinking that's going to come in handy in the future. Perfect my chronograph, indeed!