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AbstractTo analyse contingent propositions, this paper investigates how branching time structures can be combined with probability theory. In particular, it considers assigning infinitesimal probabilities—available in non-Archimedean probability theory—to individual histories. This allows us to introduce the concept of 'remote possibility' as a new modal notion between 'impossibility' and 'appreciable possibility'. The proposal is illustrated by applying it to a future contingent and a historical counterfactual concerning an infinite sequence of coin tosses. The latter is a toy model that is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposal to more realistic physical models.

This article addresses the relation between `mega-events' and time in modern society. `Mega-events', or international cultural and sport events such as the Olympic Games and World's Fairs, have an `extra-ordinary' status by virtue of their very large scale and their periodicity. Mega-event genres have had an enduring mass popularity in modernity since their creation in the late 19th century and continue to do so in a period of globalization. Drawing on recent analysis of mega-events the article suggests that this popularity derives from the significant positive and adaptive roles they continue to play in relation to the interpersonal and public structuring of time.

Time is regarded as the immanent dimension for the social experience. This phenomenologically informed perspective of time is built into the ethnomethodological programme jointly proposed by Garfinkel and Sacks as they set out to uncover social orders through examining the temporal sequence in practical activity. However, Garfinkel and Sacks took different paths from this initial proposal in their separate development of Ethnomethodological Studies of Work and Conversation Analysis. Focusing on different forms of data, the two programmes adopted different approaches to time and action in constructing the time structures in their sociological description of activity. However, the difference has seldom been subjected to discussion and much less attempt to explore a possible synthesis of the two programmes from there. This article attempts to address this gap by proposing a perspective of multi-layered temporality in social interaction. The analysis examines three extracts from a university communication workshop for students and explicates different modes of how simultaneous sequences can constitute participants' action in situ: (1) simultaneous sequences by different actors; (2) simultaneous sequences by the same actor; (3) simultaneous sequences within a participatory framework. Contending the social actors' phenomenological potential to perceive simultaneous sequences in different time frames, we conclude that the 'situational time' in EM and 'conversational time' in CA can be commensurable. Interweaving different layers of temporality into an ethnomethodological description, practitioners can better reconstruct a 'reasonable total picture' of social activity to manifest its complex, seen-but-unnoticed endogenous social order. Beyond ethnomethodology, the multi-layered perspective of time provides the basis for a holistic approach to time, allowing the enquiry of broader social time through studying social life in vivo.

Time is often taken-for-granted as abstract and constant, even though the lives we lead are always changing within the context of time and because of time. In this paper, we explore the hidden challenges of hegemonic neoliberal framings of 'flexibility' which urge students to presume that study-time is asynchronous and can be engaged with anytime, eroding recognition that it is contextual and much more structured than expected. Timing is dynamic and shifts in relation to broader economic, spatial and cultural changes, all of which shape the 'temporal dis/positions' we discuss. A study that included 27 interviews with Australian university students is drawn on to illuminate these points. We argue that through the neo-liberalised projection of the university, important contextual dynamics and associated demands are increasingly disguised. This impacts on learning and teaching time and individualises responsibility for time management onto students, many of whom consequently experience guilt and self-blame.

Intro -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Acknowledgements -- Notes on Contributors -- 1. Introduction -- I The Political Economy of Time -- 2. Time, Complexity and the Global -- Introduction -- Times -- The global paradigm -- Global hybrids -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- 3. Service Regimes and the Political Economy of Time -- Introduction -- Historical change in time use -- The political economy at time -- High and low value services, production and consumption -- Alternative service economies -- Conclusion -- 4. Politicizing Time: Temporal Issues for Second-Wave Feminists -- Introduction: if only we had time -- Women have no time -- Making time to act -- Challenging time -- Time enough -- Notes -- 5. Time and Speed in the Social Universe of Capital -- Introduction -- The speed of life -- The social universe of capital: M-C-M& -- #8242 -- meets E = mc[sup(2)] -- A theory of social time -- II Work Time -- 6. How Many Hours? Work-Time Regimes and Preferences in European Countries -- Introduction -- Working-time trends and pressures in contemporary societies -- Who works the longest hours? -- How many hours would men and women prefer to work? -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 7. Gendered and Classed Working Time in Britain: Dual-Employee Couples in Higher/Lower-Level Occupations -- Introduction -- Data -- Gendered and classed working time -- Dual breadwinners -- Male breadwinners -- Dual breadwinners -- Female breadwinners -- Dual carers -- Conclusion -- 8. Employment Patterns for the Future: Balancing Work and Family Life in Two Local Authorities -- Introduction -- The case study organizations and the survey -- Polarization in coping with care responsibilities -- Diverging preferences -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- 9. Making Time for Management: the Careers and Lives of Manager-Academics in UK Universities -- Introduction.

It is shown that a virtual collapse in the space–time structure of a geographically distributed system may induce changes in the information flow field of the system and lead to instability. A case study of the commercial banking system of New York City demonstrates how a virtual collapse in the space–time structure of its check clearing process led to a transformed information flow environment in which banks had, for the first time, accurate and timely information concerning the decision-making processes of other banks. A dynamical systems model representing the behavior of the banks, both before and after the transformation, demonstrates how their competitive use of this information led to decision-making based on the decisions of others. This process of internal referencing resulted in a structurally unstable state in which perturbations, arising from asymmetric responses to seasonally changing deposit flows, accumulated with little or no decay. This caused loans to diverge from deposits and made the system susceptible to random financial perturbations that led to a banking panic. While the behavior of the aggregate system was structurally unstable, the behavior of the individual banks was stable, with the banks behaving as a coherent group. The internal referencing structural instability is of general significance for the aggregate behavior of geographically distributed systems that undergo a virtual collapse in their space–time structures and a transformation of their information flow fields.