The story of Tempus and Hora has been told here and there in different contexts, for example to illustrate the value of planning for interruptions, or to explain that dynamic but stable systems are arranged in nearly decomposable hierarchies. It has also been used to highlight the concept of scientific reductionism—in other words, the reduction of complex phenomena into their most basic parts. Herbert Simon—who was awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his pioneering research into the decision-making process within economic organizations—liked to tell the story of Tempus and Hora. Indeed, the story appears in his landmark book “The sciences of the artificial.” It goes more or…