What, exactly, is an event? An event is a stretch of time, and time, according to physicists, is a continuous variable—an inevitable cosmic flow, in Newton’s world, or a fourth dimension in a seamless hyperspace, in Einstein’s. But the human mind carves this fabric into the discrete swatches we call events. Where does the mind place the ______? Sometimes, as the lawyers for the World Trade Center leaseholder pointed out, the cut encircles the change of state of an object, such as the collapse of a building. And sometimes, as the lawyers for the insurers pointed out, it encircles the goal of a human actor, such as a plot being executed. Most often the circles ______: an actor intends to cause an object to change, the intent of the actor and the fate of the object are tracked along a single time line, and the moment of change marks the completion of the intent.
