Why Time Flies

A Mostly Scientific Investigation

By: Alan Burdick, Alan Burdick - introduction

Narrated by: George Newbern

“An insightful meditation on the curious nature of time…A highly illuminating intellectual investigation” (Kirkus Reviews) explaining the sometimes contradictory ways we experience time.

“Time” is the most commonly used noun in the English language; it’s always on our minds and it advances through every living moment. But what is time, exactly? Do children experience it the same way adults do? Why does it seem to slow down when we’re bored and speed by as we get older? How and why does time fly?

“Erudite and informative, a joy with many small treasures” (Science), this witty and meditative exploration by award-winning author and New Yorker staff writer Alan Burdick—“one of the finest science writers at work today, with an uncanny ability to explain knotty topics, with humanity, and humor” (Publishers Weekly, staff pick, best books of 2016)—takes readers on a personal quest to understand how time gets in us and why we perceive it the way we do. In the company of scientists, he visits the most accurate clock in the world (which exists only on paper); discovers that “now” actually happened a split-second ago; finds a twenty-fifth hour in the day; lives in the Arctic to lose all sense of time; and, for one fleeting moment in a neuroscientist’s lab, even makes time go backward.

“Why Time Flies captures us. Because it opens up a well of fascinating queries and gives us a glimpse of what has become an ever more deepening mystery for humans: the nature of time” (The New York Times Book Review). This “intellectual adventure renders a hefty topic accessible to the general public” (Richmond Times-Dispatch), is an instant classic, a vivid and intimate examination of the clocks that tick inside us all.

Amazing, comprehensive brilliance on the future of our world

This book is a must read, it does an amazing job of analyzing the rapid acceleration of changing our world – especially with new technology – and offers a practical and hopeful path for societies to successfully adapt. You should absolutely read (listen) to this book, whether you're in business, government/politics, education, non-profit work, or simply are interested in how our world is changing. Friedman offers vivid, fascinating case studies and extraordinarily smart, practical ideas that should appeal to anyone from any political background. If there is one book that you finish this year, this should be it.

Boring

Excessive, unnecessary detail that makes the book much longer than it needs to be to make it's point. Over and over the author writes: "when does now begin and when does it end?".
We got that point after the second or third time. After the umpteenth time you start to wish that the book would end.

TIME IS A MYSTERY

Time is a mystery. Alan Burdick speculates on a definition of time in “Why Time Flies”. In some respects, Burdick’s story is enlightening; in others, time escapes his audience’s understanding.

Time appears to be a construct of mind and consciousness, both of which are equally mysterious.  No one really knows what mind and consciousness are but recent experiments suggest they are a state of being that offers versions of reality; i.e. not objective truth but subjective understanding.  Experiments show that the mind deconstructs what we see and reassembles it to have meaning in an individual’s consciousness. 

Burdick shows, through recounted experiments, that time does not slow down when we experience traumatic events like a car crash or a bungee jump.  What our mind does is reconstruct an accident or bungee jump through a consciousness that makes it seem time slows down.  Our consciousness remembers or manufactures events as though they occurred in slow motion; i.e. we remember seeing our car flipping over, the top being crushed, and our effort to use a seat belt to steady our movements.  All of this happens within a minute but we remember it in detail as though a slow-motion camera records the accident.

How does one define a moment?  It seems to be something between history and future but what is time’s physical marker?  Maybe it is consciousness but no one knows what consciousness is and every person’s consciousness is personal and subjective; not universal.

At best, Burdick’s story only deepens the mystery of time.

Deep, somewhat fractured review of research

Time perception, duration perception and many other time-related topics. Nice amount of humor along with the facts. Very interesting!

Nuanced and thoughtful

Any additional comments?

Entertaining, educational, introspective, and timely (pun intended). This all too brief book deals with time, how we measure it, how our bodies perceive it, how our brains process it, and what we have yet to figure out. It is a well-balanced mixture of science and anecdote, explanation and emotion. Worth your time!