in a finite time if each subsequent act is smaller in a convergent series": In quantum physics Until the discovery of quantum mechanics, no distinction was made between the question of whether matter is infinitely divisible and the question of whether matter can be cut into smaller parts ad infinitum. As a result, the Greek word átomos (ἄτομος), which literally means "uncuttable", is usually translated as "indivisible". Whereas the modern atom is indeed divisible, it actually is uncuttable: there is no partition of space such that its parts correspond to material parts of the atom. In other words, the quantum-mechanical description of matter no longer conforms to the cookie cutter paradigm. This casts fresh light on the ancient conundrum of the divisibility of matter. The multiplicity of a material object—the number of its parts—depends on the existence, not of delimiting surfaces, but of internal spatial relations (relative positions between parts), and these lack determinate values. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, the particles that make up an atom—quarks and electrons—are point particles: they do not take up space. What makes an atom nevertheless take up space is not any spatially extended "stuff" that "occupies space", and that might be cut into smaller and smaller pieces, but the indeterminacy of its internal spatial relations. Physical space is often regarded as infinitely divisible: it is thought that any region in space, no matter how small, could be further split. Time is similarly considered as infinitely divisible. However according to the best currently accepted theory in physics, The Standard Model, there is a distance (called the Planck length, 1.616229(38)×10−35 metres, named after one of the fathers of Quantum Theory, Max Planck) and therefore a time interval (the amount of time which light takes to traverse that distance in a vacuum, 5.39116(13) × 10−44 seconds, known as the Planck time) at which the Standard Model is expected to break down – effectively making this the smallest physical scale about which meaningful statements can be currently made. To predict the physical behaviour of space-time and fundamental particles at smaller distances requires a new theory of Quantum Gravity, which unifies the hitherto incompatible theories of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. In economics One dollar, or one euro, is divided into 100 cents; one can only pay in increments of a cent. It is quite commonplace for prices of some commodities such as gasoline to