Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation

What is time? That is a question the Alan Burdick tries to answer in Why Time Flies. Dictionaries often include a somewhat circular definition of time. We know what it is and we can sense its passage, yet it doesn't seem to be a physical sense like touch or smell. It feels that time passes slower when we our younger, but then speeds up as we get older. Some studies have "proven" this, yet there have also been flaws in the studies. "New" events do appear to take longer than repeated events. This may be do to the more resources that are spent processing the newness than are needed for reprocessing the old. The brain also does a lot of "tricks" to make the real world appear as we expect it. When there is a small delay between the time you touch a key and the character appears on a screen, the brain correlates those with being instantaneous events. If a character then appears instantly upon keypress, the brain will interpret that as happened. "Time" may pass in an orderly manner. However, their are a lot of "tricks" that the brain pulls in our interpretation of the passing of events. This book does a good job in investigating many of these tricks and pointing out that the science behind time is still in its infant stage.