What do you think?
Rate this book
Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation
“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?
In this witty and meditative exploration, award-winning author and New Yorker staff writer Alan Burdick 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 is an instant classic, a vivid and intimate examination of the clocks that tick inside us all.
In this witty and meditative exploration, award-winning author and New Yorker staff writer Alan Burdick 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 is an instant classic, a vivid and intimate examination of the clocks that tick inside us all.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 24, 2017
284 people are currently reading
4452 people want to read
About the author
Alan Burdick
12 books46 followersAlan Burdick is an editor on the science desk of The New York Times, a former staff writer and senior editor at The New Yorker, and the author of Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation. His first book, Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion (FSG, 2005), was a National Book Award finalist and won the Overseas Press Club award for environmental reporting. He has written for numerous publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, GQ, and Outside.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 206 reviews
Read
July 23, 2025This was not a bad book, but it did not fully meet the purpose I had when I read it (namely to get a better view on what the phenomenon of time is). In fact, it only confirmed what is known for a long time: that time is elusive and that it runs through us, without us being able to really grasp it.
The author initially introduces us to the well-known theories about time, such as those of Saint-Augustine, that time actually just sits between our ears, is constructed by our consciousness. That mantra always returns in the following chapters. And that of course touches ground: there seems to be no objective, external, really universal time; to his - and our - astonishment, Burdick finds that even all the ultramodern scientific clocks in the world must constantly tune into each other to synchronize to a sort of average.
In the rest of the book, Burdick changes focus and embarks on a biological-psychological voyage, zooming in on how a person as an individual experiences time. He delves into the classical distinction between the experience of the "now" (and how long is that now, or the present, precisely?), the experience time intervals or duration, and the experience of a time sequence (a chronology). For no clear reason the latter is not elaborated upon, and as an historian that disappointed me a bit.
Instead, Burdick takes an in-depth look at biological, cognitive, and neurological experiments that reveal quite complex results. For example, we each have our built-in biorythm, the so-called circadian clock, which spans about a day (curiously, Burdick does not mention the menstrual cycle), but there are also all kinds of parts in our brain that coordinate sensory perceptions and connect it with the time factor (in a perpetual process of synchronizing), often in a very wonderful way and in which optical or auditory illusions can play a role. These chapters are hard to follow, but very interesting.
But there is one observation that keeps coming back: there is no separate organ in our body that observes or measures time; instead, our experience of time is a complex and still not untangled whole of neurological and cognitive processes that somehow make us produce time-matching and alignment. It is only afterwards that we can say something meaningful about what happened, how long it took and whether it came before or after something else. And then it turns out that not only mechanical (or atomic) clocks, but also our brain always recalibrates and synchronizes, not only internally, but also externally (for example, empathy with other people also plays a role in our experiencing of time). And with that we are back to Augustine and his concept of time as perception.
Afterthought: it may be true that time is elusive and we don't fully understand it yet (most probably never will, unless in terms of the second law of thermodynamics - but that's only part of the character of time), still it exists, it's NOT ONLY just perception, a feature of our consciousness. People really get old and die, things really wear off, the universe is evolving and not static. It's not because we can't really grasp it, that it isn't a reality. So, somehow it has a kind of external, objective kind of character, no? After reading this book and giving it some thought, I have the impression that cognitivists and neurologists are forgetting this. It's like the classic story of the philosopher stating that everything is perception until he hits his toe against a stone.
The author initially introduces us to the well-known theories about time, such as those of Saint-Augustine, that time actually just sits between our ears, is constructed by our consciousness. That mantra always returns in the following chapters. And that of course touches ground: there seems to be no objective, external, really universal time; to his - and our - astonishment, Burdick finds that even all the ultramodern scientific clocks in the world must constantly tune into each other to synchronize to a sort of average.
In the rest of the book, Burdick changes focus and embarks on a biological-psychological voyage, zooming in on how a person as an individual experiences time. He delves into the classical distinction between the experience of the "now" (and how long is that now, or the present, precisely?), the experience time intervals or duration, and the experience of a time sequence (a chronology). For no clear reason the latter is not elaborated upon, and as an historian that disappointed me a bit.
Instead, Burdick takes an in-depth look at biological, cognitive, and neurological experiments that reveal quite complex results. For example, we each have our built-in biorythm, the so-called circadian clock, which spans about a day (curiously, Burdick does not mention the menstrual cycle), but there are also all kinds of parts in our brain that coordinate sensory perceptions and connect it with the time factor (in a perpetual process of synchronizing), often in a very wonderful way and in which optical or auditory illusions can play a role. These chapters are hard to follow, but very interesting.
But there is one observation that keeps coming back: there is no separate organ in our body that observes or measures time; instead, our experience of time is a complex and still not untangled whole of neurological and cognitive processes that somehow make us produce time-matching and alignment. It is only afterwards that we can say something meaningful about what happened, how long it took and whether it came before or after something else. And then it turns out that not only mechanical (or atomic) clocks, but also our brain always recalibrates and synchronizes, not only internally, but also externally (for example, empathy with other people also plays a role in our experiencing of time). And with that we are back to Augustine and his concept of time as perception.
Afterthought: it may be true that time is elusive and we don't fully understand it yet (most probably never will, unless in terms of the second law of thermodynamics - but that's only part of the character of time), still it exists, it's NOT ONLY just perception, a feature of our consciousness. People really get old and die, things really wear off, the universe is evolving and not static. It's not because we can't really grasp it, that it isn't a reality. So, somehow it has a kind of external, objective kind of character, no? After reading this book and giving it some thought, I have the impression that cognitivists and neurologists are forgetting this. It's like the classic story of the philosopher stating that everything is perception until he hits his toe against a stone.
September 22, 2019
“I can guarantee that these pages do not answer your every last question about time", Burdick says at the end of this book. The least you can say, is that he’s honest. Burdick apparently worked on this book for a long time, and in his epilogue he compares what he's written to building a sand castle that will inexorably be swept away by the tidal wave. For an in-depth review of what Burdick's investigation offers for an historian's approach to time, see my Sense-of-history-account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....
This is generally a smooth-reading book, only halfway through you get a bit lost in the endless but interesting experiments. It doesn't make you any wiser unless that time remains elusive not only to physicists but also to psychologists and neurologists. In other words, as elusive as for every ordinary person. But as a person, we have one absolute certainty: one day, time will end for us.
This is generally a smooth-reading book, only halfway through you get a bit lost in the endless but interesting experiments. It doesn't make you any wiser unless that time remains elusive not only to physicists but also to psychologists and neurologists. In other words, as elusive as for every ordinary person. But as a person, we have one absolute certainty: one day, time will end for us.
October 14, 2017
This book definitely stretched my brain! You don't realize how detached you have become from science in the many decades since you last sat in a science classroom until you try to internalize basic concepts of cell biology and come away with a headache and a vague Flowers for Algernon feeling.
Accordingly, I found the first few chapters (about the measurement of time and cellular circadian clocks, among other things) challenging but fascinating. (And I should note that this stuff probably isn't challenging at all if you have a minimal scientific competency. The book was a gift from my research psychiatrist cousin and her MD husband, and they did not put a warning label on it. I'm sure for them it was easy peasy). When the Nobel in medicine went, shortly after I finished this book, to 3 scientists for their work on circadian rhythms, I felt very in the know.
Unfortunately, the book ended up seeming somewhat scattered to me. The loose association of "time" means that this is a series of essays, really, without a lot to tie them together. It seems at once repetitious and like it is covering too much ground.
Nevertheless, I did enjoy it intermittently (the experiments on babies and language only seemed loosely related to "time" but sure were fascinating), and Burdock definitely strengthened my resolve to try not to let science be as much of a stranger to me as it has been lately.
Accordingly, I found the first few chapters (about the measurement of time and cellular circadian clocks, among other things) challenging but fascinating. (And I should note that this stuff probably isn't challenging at all if you have a minimal scientific competency. The book was a gift from my research psychiatrist cousin and her MD husband, and they did not put a warning label on it. I'm sure for them it was easy peasy). When the Nobel in medicine went, shortly after I finished this book, to 3 scientists for their work on circadian rhythms, I felt very in the know.
Unfortunately, the book ended up seeming somewhat scattered to me. The loose association of "time" means that this is a series of essays, really, without a lot to tie them together. It seems at once repetitious and like it is covering too much ground.
Nevertheless, I did enjoy it intermittently (the experiments on babies and language only seemed loosely related to "time" but sure were fascinating), and Burdock definitely strengthened my resolve to try not to let science be as much of a stranger to me as it has been lately.
May 11, 2017
A very personal, somewhat scattered investigation into biological time. There was much I learned from this volume, and the author examined the question of "why does time fly" from several angles. His conclusion, in a simple answer - it really doesn't.
Alan Burdick is the father of twins, and this book was his labor for many of their early years. He weaves anecdotes about them, his father's watch, and sleepless early mornings into the scientific examinations. These latter are not too technical, but be prepared for basal ganglia and cyanobacteria.
In a way, this book is also a travelogue. The author travels to meet various scientists, clock keepers and chronological notables. He also participates in experiments related to time and time sense. The detail of those experiments was the most fascinating part for me - I have heard of only a few of the tests detailed in this book before.
This work lives up to the subtitle, "A mostly scientific investigation". I found it a great introduction, and plan to read more from some of the scientists he mentions here. Reading this book was one instance of time well spent.
Alan Burdick is the father of twins, and this book was his labor for many of their early years. He weaves anecdotes about them, his father's watch, and sleepless early mornings into the scientific examinations. These latter are not too technical, but be prepared for basal ganglia and cyanobacteria.
In a way, this book is also a travelogue. The author travels to meet various scientists, clock keepers and chronological notables. He also participates in experiments related to time and time sense. The detail of those experiments was the most fascinating part for me - I have heard of only a few of the tests detailed in this book before.
This work lives up to the subtitle, "A mostly scientific investigation". I found it a great introduction, and plan to read more from some of the scientists he mentions here. Reading this book was one instance of time well spent.
February 22, 2017
I suppose this book will be of interest to those with a scientific bent, particularly in biology, physiology, neuron-science, and also philosophy. It might also be of some interest to those who, like me, are amateur cosmologists with an abiding interest in time. For everybody else, this book is likely to be a snoozer.
Most studies of time today presuppose that time is merely an artifact of human consciousness. Burdick attributes this idea to St. Augustine and maybe even earlier philosophers (pp. 29-30). Philosophers were the first to tackle seriously the nature of consciousness and, therefore, time. When timepieces were improved, anomalies arose, because no two clocks consistently agreed with each other. That's when the biologists and psychologists got involved. They accepted that time was essentially nothing more than a form of human perception. Eventually, the neuro-scientists got involved, and even more anomalies presented themselves.
After 4 billion years, virtually every living thing on the planet has adjusted its "clock" to the Earth's rotation, approximately 24 hours. Even the DNA in living cells appear to have a 24-hour circadian rhythm! This is scientifically proven. DNA molecules cannot "think" of course, much less "perceive" the passage of time, as humans allegedly do. So something is going on here apart from human perception. Nevertheless, humans are easy test subjects and so science has fixated on time as an artifact of human consciousness, not something that is otherwise real or measurable, except by the use of clocks.
Humans experience time in terms of the duration of an event, the temporal order of events, tense (past and future), and now (p. 26). Unfortunately, different humans perceive these things differently from one another for many reasons. Lucidity, context, and common variations in human intellect account for some of these differences, but more important is the physiology of the brain and the physics of light and sound. Different experiences (light and sound, for instance), reach the brain at different times (perhaps imperceptibly quickly) and travel different paths of neurons in the brain before these signals are somehow integrated into a perception called "now." Even though these actions occur with unbelievable speed, there is still a lag between "now" and what we perceive to be "now." In effect, "now" is a memory of something that has already happened (p. 211).
Then, there are common illusions that can be demonstrated in the laboratory that distort humans' perceptions of duration and even the temporal order of events. As best as I understand, things that occur within 80 milliseconds of each other are perceived as simultaneous ("now"). Things that occur at an interval longer than 80 milliseconds are perceived as tense ("before and after"). Things that occur at a shorter interval than 80 milliseconds might be perceived as reverse causality ("after" happened before "before" (pp. 128,134, 139)! Or maybe I just don't understand the author's explanations.
Additionally, the idea of "now" as something that everybody around the entire world experiences at the same time is disputable (p. 108). Each human has her own "now," which perhaps helps explain the unreliability of eyewitness testimonies.
I am not a philosopher, biologist, psychiatrist, or neuro-scientist, so it is entirely possible that I just didn't understand what I was reading. But as an amateur cosmologist, I suspect the claim that time is only an artifact of human perception. I tend to believe that time is a real thing that exists irrespective of our perception of it.
Here are some of the physicists' observations about time as I understand them (and, again, I claim no special expertise in this respect). First, there is no grand clock that measures time across the entirety of the universe. Second, time is relative to motion and mass, it is bent and distorted by the presence of gravity and relative motion (thanks, Einstein!). Third, the arrow of time is unidirectional. The past always gives way to the future. Cause always precedes effect.
Every person experiences time flowing at the same rate as every other person, subject to the physiological and contextual variables noted above. Theoretically, time passes at the speed of light. However, two different observers traveling in different directions or at different speeds or in the presence of different masses will notice that time is flowing differently for the other person. Space-time behaves according to well established laws of physics and exists everywhere in the universe, irrespective of whether or not there is some human to perceive it.
Then again, what the hell do I know. I'm a Political Scientist, not a know-it-all!
Most studies of time today presuppose that time is merely an artifact of human consciousness. Burdick attributes this idea to St. Augustine and maybe even earlier philosophers (pp. 29-30). Philosophers were the first to tackle seriously the nature of consciousness and, therefore, time. When timepieces were improved, anomalies arose, because no two clocks consistently agreed with each other. That's when the biologists and psychologists got involved. They accepted that time was essentially nothing more than a form of human perception. Eventually, the neuro-scientists got involved, and even more anomalies presented themselves.
After 4 billion years, virtually every living thing on the planet has adjusted its "clock" to the Earth's rotation, approximately 24 hours. Even the DNA in living cells appear to have a 24-hour circadian rhythm! This is scientifically proven. DNA molecules cannot "think" of course, much less "perceive" the passage of time, as humans allegedly do. So something is going on here apart from human perception. Nevertheless, humans are easy test subjects and so science has fixated on time as an artifact of human consciousness, not something that is otherwise real or measurable, except by the use of clocks.
Humans experience time in terms of the duration of an event, the temporal order of events, tense (past and future), and now (p. 26). Unfortunately, different humans perceive these things differently from one another for many reasons. Lucidity, context, and common variations in human intellect account for some of these differences, but more important is the physiology of the brain and the physics of light and sound. Different experiences (light and sound, for instance), reach the brain at different times (perhaps imperceptibly quickly) and travel different paths of neurons in the brain before these signals are somehow integrated into a perception called "now." Even though these actions occur with unbelievable speed, there is still a lag between "now" and what we perceive to be "now." In effect, "now" is a memory of something that has already happened (p. 211).
Then, there are common illusions that can be demonstrated in the laboratory that distort humans' perceptions of duration and even the temporal order of events. As best as I understand, things that occur within 80 milliseconds of each other are perceived as simultaneous ("now"). Things that occur at an interval longer than 80 milliseconds are perceived as tense ("before and after"). Things that occur at a shorter interval than 80 milliseconds might be perceived as reverse causality ("after" happened before "before" (pp. 128,134, 139)! Or maybe I just don't understand the author's explanations.
Additionally, the idea of "now" as something that everybody around the entire world experiences at the same time is disputable (p. 108). Each human has her own "now," which perhaps helps explain the unreliability of eyewitness testimonies.
I am not a philosopher, biologist, psychiatrist, or neuro-scientist, so it is entirely possible that I just didn't understand what I was reading. But as an amateur cosmologist, I suspect the claim that time is only an artifact of human perception. I tend to believe that time is a real thing that exists irrespective of our perception of it.
Here are some of the physicists' observations about time as I understand them (and, again, I claim no special expertise in this respect). First, there is no grand clock that measures time across the entirety of the universe. Second, time is relative to motion and mass, it is bent and distorted by the presence of gravity and relative motion (thanks, Einstein!). Third, the arrow of time is unidirectional. The past always gives way to the future. Cause always precedes effect.
Every person experiences time flowing at the same rate as every other person, subject to the physiological and contextual variables noted above. Theoretically, time passes at the speed of light. However, two different observers traveling in different directions or at different speeds or in the presence of different masses will notice that time is flowing differently for the other person. Space-time behaves according to well established laws of physics and exists everywhere in the universe, irrespective of whether or not there is some human to perceive it.
Then again, what the hell do I know. I'm a Political Scientist, not a know-it-all!
January 20, 2021
I got halfway through and stopped. The first half is not a "Mostly Scientific Investigation". It should be re-titled "a cultural and historical look at time and how to measure it".
I read through chapters about the history of clocks and clock towers, how institutions around the world agreed on time zones, a lot of self inserts from the author about how his young children can't tell time and wake him up in the morning, and oh he needs more sleep. He got a special children's light up clock to solve the problem but it didn't help, details and details more on this. Maybe this is to add lightness to the book, but I had no interest in reading about it. There was seemingly little science in the first half of the book. (Some of David Eagleman's research about time perception made it into these chapters at least.)
After reading chapters that had little science in them I figured I can just google to find out which scientists study time and time perception, and read their work. I tried to get through this book but too much of it was off topic. Maybe the second half gets better. There's potential to pick it up in the future again, but for now this is abandoned.
2 stars.
I read through chapters about the history of clocks and clock towers, how institutions around the world agreed on time zones, a lot of self inserts from the author about how his young children can't tell time and wake him up in the morning, and oh he needs more sleep. He got a special children's light up clock to solve the problem but it didn't help, details and details more on this. Maybe this is to add lightness to the book, but I had no interest in reading about it. There was seemingly little science in the first half of the book. (Some of David Eagleman's research about time perception made it into these chapters at least.)
After reading chapters that had little science in them I figured I can just google to find out which scientists study time and time perception, and read their work. I tried to get through this book but too much of it was off topic. Maybe the second half gets better. There's potential to pick it up in the future again, but for now this is abandoned.
2 stars.
November 11, 2019
I expected to enjoy this book because I am very interested in learning more about the concept of time perception. The bits on the calculation of UTC, the experiments of Michel Siffre, and circadian rhythm were interesting and informative. However, I found the sections on the present moment and perception of time passage - the sections that I was most looking forward to - to be lackluster. Burdick makes no mention of Eastern religions or philosophies, while relying heavily on references to the work of St. Augustine.
The subtitle bills this book as something it is not. In many chapters, Burdick reviews one or two previous experiments concerning the question at hand, and then makes sweeping generalizations about the nature of time. This book is more of a personal investigation by Burdick. He does not shy away from that, but he mischaracterizes his personal conclusions as products of this so-called “mostly scientific investigation”.
The subtitle bills this book as something it is not. In many chapters, Burdick reviews one or two previous experiments concerning the question at hand, and then makes sweeping generalizations about the nature of time. This book is more of a personal investigation by Burdick. He does not shy away from that, but he mischaracterizes his personal conclusions as products of this so-called “mostly scientific investigation”.
March 29, 2018
‘Alan Burdick takes a new, interesting and mindful approach to the topic in an effort to understand what we know about that often intangible concept we call time.’
Australian Geographic
‘[Burdick] is a lucid and well-informed commentator on scientific matters. Here, he takes us by the wrist and leads us through the maze of time. We could not ask for a better guide.’
Stuff NZ
‘Time for Burdick is ultimately an adventure of discovery. His wealth of deeply researched and detailed but humorous stories serves to raise our curiosity…Make time to read his fascinating and illuminating book.’
Toowoomba Chronicle
‘In his lucid, thoughtful, and beautifully written inquiry about time…Burdick offers nothing less than a new way of reconsidering what it means to be human.’
Hanya Yanagihara, author of A Little Life
‘Alan Burdick offers a fascinating and searching account of how we perceive time’s passage. It will change the way you think about the past, and also the present.’
Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction
‘Alan Burdick turns an obsession with the nature of time into a thrilling quest—one that brilliantly illuminates a subject that haunts us all. Time may fly by but at least while reading these pages it is never wasted.’
David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z
‘[Why Time Flies] 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.’
New York Times Book Review
‘An insightful meditation on the curious nature of time….A highly illuminating intellectual investigation.’
Kirkus Reviews
‘Brilliant, brain-boggling.’
New Daily
‘[Burdick] is an engaging writer guided by curiosity.’
Saturday Paper
‘To readers of the New Yorker, Burdick’s style is instantly recognisable: informal, informed and indefatigably researched…His wit and humour keep the narrative rolling with wry observations.’
New Zealand Herald
‘A fascinating premise that we can all relate to…A well-researched volume [with] some fascinating insights.’
AU Review
Australian Geographic
‘[Burdick] is a lucid and well-informed commentator on scientific matters. Here, he takes us by the wrist and leads us through the maze of time. We could not ask for a better guide.’
Stuff NZ
‘Time for Burdick is ultimately an adventure of discovery. His wealth of deeply researched and detailed but humorous stories serves to raise our curiosity…Make time to read his fascinating and illuminating book.’
Toowoomba Chronicle
‘In his lucid, thoughtful, and beautifully written inquiry about time…Burdick offers nothing less than a new way of reconsidering what it means to be human.’
Hanya Yanagihara, author of A Little Life
‘Alan Burdick offers a fascinating and searching account of how we perceive time’s passage. It will change the way you think about the past, and also the present.’
Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction
‘Alan Burdick turns an obsession with the nature of time into a thrilling quest—one that brilliantly illuminates a subject that haunts us all. Time may fly by but at least while reading these pages it is never wasted.’
David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z
‘[Why Time Flies] 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.’
New York Times Book Review
‘An insightful meditation on the curious nature of time….A highly illuminating intellectual investigation.’
Kirkus Reviews
‘Brilliant, brain-boggling.’
New Daily
‘[Burdick] is an engaging writer guided by curiosity.’
Saturday Paper
‘To readers of the New Yorker, Burdick’s style is instantly recognisable: informal, informed and indefatigably researched…His wit and humour keep the narrative rolling with wry observations.’
New Zealand Herald
‘A fascinating premise that we can all relate to…A well-researched volume [with] some fascinating insights.’
AU Review
December 1, 2017
Wide ranging and maybe too scattered in scope. If you hope to understand how your brain produces the subjective feeling of a flowing time, this book can only show you what an intractable mystery that is.
October 17, 2017
Popular Non-Fiction takes on a Timeless Topic
Great book, reminds me of Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves by James Nestor.
Basically a supremely talented writer, in this case Alan Burdick, takes on a big topic - and it leads him to lessons about life.
Deep had a bit more of an active topic - the concept of going underwater, which led him to free-diving, dolphins and more - but Burdick's talent takes this one over the top.
He thinks about time, and our perception of it. He shows how we - and no living creature for that matter - truly sees things the way they are now - there is something called 'postdiction' - the opposite of prediction that processes the near past into the present.
He visits David Eagleman, another author who I love. Eagleman is a scientist/thinker here, and it is interesting seeing this author as a character. It's like hearing about a friend from another friend.
Long story short - this is a book primarily about our perception of time. It doesn't delve too deeply into physics or what time is - it mostly sees what happens when you go into a cave for two months, or stay in Antarctica during the summer, or take an experiment from David Eagleman.
But if you are into light non-fiction - and I mean light in the sense that the author's talent makes it easy to read, ie not saying it is lightweight - then I would recommend this one.
Great book, reminds me of Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves by James Nestor.
Basically a supremely talented writer, in this case Alan Burdick, takes on a big topic - and it leads him to lessons about life.
Deep had a bit more of an active topic - the concept of going underwater, which led him to free-diving, dolphins and more - but Burdick's talent takes this one over the top.
He thinks about time, and our perception of it. He shows how we - and no living creature for that matter - truly sees things the way they are now - there is something called 'postdiction' - the opposite of prediction that processes the near past into the present.
He visits David Eagleman, another author who I love. Eagleman is a scientist/thinker here, and it is interesting seeing this author as a character. It's like hearing about a friend from another friend.
Long story short - this is a book primarily about our perception of time. It doesn't delve too deeply into physics or what time is - it mostly sees what happens when you go into a cave for two months, or stay in Antarctica during the summer, or take an experiment from David Eagleman.
But if you are into light non-fiction - and I mean light in the sense that the author's talent makes it easy to read, ie not saying it is lightweight - then I would recommend this one.
November 18, 2017
this book includes several 5-star sections but some of the other digressions really slow it down. i appreciate what the author was trying to do, and some of the studies and conclusions will stick with me for ages. i just wish some of the more tangential bits had been trimmed.
January 18, 2021
Mul tekkis lugemisel aina enam küsimus, et kuhu selle jutuga tahetakse jõuda. Ja mitmeid lahtisi otsi jäeti või katkes lugu poole pealt.
Jutt lihtsalt jookseb kusagile teadmata suunas. Ja meeletult häiris, et polnud peatükistatud (paar suuremat ptk-i olid, aga just alapealkirjad vms oleks oluliselt loogilisemaks kogu raamatu teinud).
Lõpu poole oli isegi natuke piin ja ka sunnitud lugemine, mistap viimased ca 50lk jäid lugemata.
Siiski sain aru, et aeg on väga metateadus (ja nano-tasemel mõõtmine) :D Ja autori kaksikutest poegade lood olid üsna lõbused (ja mõningaid huvitavaid lapsekasvatamise aspekte sai ka kõrva taha pandud).
Jutt lihtsalt jookseb kusagile teadmata suunas. Ja meeletult häiris, et polnud peatükistatud (paar suuremat ptk-i olid, aga just alapealkirjad vms oleks oluliselt loogilisemaks kogu raamatu teinud).
Lõpu poole oli isegi natuke piin ja ka sunnitud lugemine, mistap viimased ca 50lk jäid lugemata.
Siiski sain aru, et aeg on väga metateadus (ja nano-tasemel mõõtmine) :D Ja autori kaksikutest poegade lood olid üsna lõbused (ja mõningaid huvitavaid lapsekasvatamise aspekte sai ka kõrva taha pandud).
March 23, 2021
This was a solid pop science book about a very interesting topic! What is time? How do we perceive it? Why does it exist? Time isn’t something which we can measure, because it seems to be the fabric of perception itself.
This book was a pleasant mixture of profound philosophical notes, coherent summaries of academic papers, fun facts, and personal anecdotes. I really enjoyed the author’s writing style, and thought it was neat how he structured the topics by scale.
I would highly recommend to anyone who experiences time (read: everyone).
This book was a pleasant mixture of profound philosophical notes, coherent summaries of academic papers, fun facts, and personal anecdotes. I really enjoyed the author’s writing style, and thought it was neat how he structured the topics by scale.
I would highly recommend to anyone who experiences time (read: everyone).
February 22, 2017
Burdick divides Why Time Flies into four sections: "The Hours" considers in part how scientists compare/coordinate clocks around the world to determine the exact time; "The Days" looks at matters diurnal, including some fascinating insights into the differing "clocks" within our bodies; "The Present" investigates what we mean by "now" and how now mostly means looking retrospectively at what now was; and "Why Time Flies" considers what are the time perceptions of young and old and how those perceptions differ (and are identical). I oversimplify here because Why Time Flies covers so much more and because the book hops back and forth among subjects so the ideas I've mentioned are evaluated in multiple chapters.
The book is loaded with interesting ideas, but ultimately I was disappointed. First, the subtitle A Mostly Scientific Investigation could just have easily been Experiments, Experiments, and More Experiments because Burdick explains in excessive detail all kinds of experiments. For instance, amid some human, dog, rat, and hummingbird experiments, Burdick says, "Ducks, pigeons, rabbits, and even fish can do some version of the same thing. (Gibbon worked with starlings.)" Well, that's more than I want to know. Likewise, a fascinating summary ("The perception of time is many things--the perception of order, tense, duration, newness, synchrony.") is lost among the myriad experiments on those various forms of perception.
Also, though Burdick's writing is mostly clear, occasionally that writing is very technical. For example: "This interval--the brief span of time within which separate streams of sensory data are labeled as belonging to a single event--is know as the intersensory temporal contiguity window. In many respects, it's a good working definition of 'now'..." Or "With that math in play, the spiny neurons in the basal ganglia could be attuned to a wide range of real-world time intervals well beyond the millisecond timescale."
To be fair to Burdick, I was looking for a different book, focusing more on physics, addressing questions like: What was there before time began? Is time travel impossible? Is the direction of time defined by movement from order to entropy? What can you tell me about spacetime and worldlines? And to be fair, there was no false advertising with Why Time Flies; I just came to the book with the wrong mindset.
Including an overwhelming analysis of experiments and the occasional confusing text; that's on Burdick. Expecting an entirely different book; that's on me.
The book is loaded with interesting ideas, but ultimately I was disappointed. First, the subtitle A Mostly Scientific Investigation could just have easily been Experiments, Experiments, and More Experiments because Burdick explains in excessive detail all kinds of experiments. For instance, amid some human, dog, rat, and hummingbird experiments, Burdick says, "Ducks, pigeons, rabbits, and even fish can do some version of the same thing. (Gibbon worked with starlings.)" Well, that's more than I want to know. Likewise, a fascinating summary ("The perception of time is many things--the perception of order, tense, duration, newness, synchrony.") is lost among the myriad experiments on those various forms of perception.
Also, though Burdick's writing is mostly clear, occasionally that writing is very technical. For example: "This interval--the brief span of time within which separate streams of sensory data are labeled as belonging to a single event--is know as the intersensory temporal contiguity window. In many respects, it's a good working definition of 'now'..." Or "With that math in play, the spiny neurons in the basal ganglia could be attuned to a wide range of real-world time intervals well beyond the millisecond timescale."
To be fair to Burdick, I was looking for a different book, focusing more on physics, addressing questions like: What was there before time began? Is time travel impossible? Is the direction of time defined by movement from order to entropy? What can you tell me about spacetime and worldlines? And to be fair, there was no false advertising with Why Time Flies; I just came to the book with the wrong mindset.
Including an overwhelming analysis of experiments and the occasional confusing text; that's on Burdick. Expecting an entirely different book; that's on me.
April 24, 2024
"O tempo é um grupo de pessoas falando."
July 25, 2017
I didn’t want to finish Alan Burdick’s Why Time Flies because each time I got the chance to step outside my irritatingly busy work-a-day grind I found myself fascinated by something Burdick shared. I won’t sit here and recount each tidbit because Mr. Burdick spent years getting it just right, and you’d be best served listening to him explain things rather than suffering through any inadequate summary I could devise in the minutes before I return to that irritatingly busy work-a-day grind of mine. A couple of my favorite discussions were the idea of “forced simultaneity” and the adjusted rate of perceived time based on empathy. These two facets, along with others shared within the book, lead me to the inescapable, uncomfortably comforting, definitely not unique conclusion that time is indeed relative.
Mr. Burdick concludes his work with a heartwarming recollection of trying to put his young twin sons to bed each night. I remember my son’s protests over bedtime, his numerous parched forays down the hall for yet another drink of water, his cascades down the stairs to relate yet another important detail of his day, his odysseys to his toy corner to conclude yet another fantastical narrative, all culminating in yet another episode of his stretching time - and me - to the breaking point before opening my eyes yet again to the gift I am living after I admonish him to “just get back in bed and stay there!” when he adds he has something he needs to tell me, and brings each night to an immortal conclusion with a soft “I love you.”
Thinking back on it all, time isn’t only relative and subjective. Time is me; I am time. That’s a powerful and frightening realization.
Mr. Burdick concludes his work with a heartwarming recollection of trying to put his young twin sons to bed each night. I remember my son’s protests over bedtime, his numerous parched forays down the hall for yet another drink of water, his cascades down the stairs to relate yet another important detail of his day, his odysseys to his toy corner to conclude yet another fantastical narrative, all culminating in yet another episode of his stretching time - and me - to the breaking point before opening my eyes yet again to the gift I am living after I admonish him to “just get back in bed and stay there!” when he adds he has something he needs to tell me, and brings each night to an immortal conclusion with a soft “I love you.”
Thinking back on it all, time isn’t only relative and subjective. Time is me; I am time. That’s a powerful and frightening realization.
March 18, 2017
I have a tattoo that says: now. People are always asking me what it means. It's interesting to me because it seems so obvious: a way of reminding myself to stay in the present, to stop ruminating on the past or worrying about the future (which quite frankly is the best nondrug treatment for my anxiety disorder I have discovered). It appears not everyone thinks about her orientation in time as much as I do.
But if you do, this book is a fascinating combination of science/the research and existential analysis of the human condition. Definitely worth the time spent reading.
But if you do, this book is a fascinating combination of science/the research and existential analysis of the human condition. Definitely worth the time spent reading.
March 5, 2017
Fascinating! Burdick discusses the mystery of time, probably the most difficult concept we think about. He describes various scientific studies and experiments that have been conducted on the subject in order to gain a better understanding. It was absoluting riveting.
February 6, 2017
A lot of great stuff here, but it wandered into the weeds a bit with too much technical, scientific information.
October 8, 2018
We all know what time is — until we think about it…
In a sense, the above is basically what this book is all about. Burdick starts off with the conventional idea of what we call time (related to Greenwich Mean Time) and how it is related essentially to the idea of a day — i.e. the length of time that passes as the earth makes one circuit about its axis. Its all about clocks.
He then examines in great detail all the issues associated with this day-long “segment” of time: how it is divided; how it relates differently to one’s position on the earth’s surface; how we agree that a specific time at a specific place is determined as the “starting point”; how “adjustments are made for the practical use of these divisions; the concerns about the accuracy at any particular time, and what is meant by that; the subtle differences at just about every point of the globe, which makes it imperative to “coordinate” what we mean hen we say “now” (an important distinction, or decision, particularly in the interrelationships between satellite communications world-wide; etc. etc. etc.
Operating, presumably, on the principle of “sink or swim” the reader is plunged, as it were, into the deep waters. The effect, from a certain point of view, is informative, yet equally startling, and perhaps even frightening. Too much information all at once (whatever that last phrase means!!!) — and while one is not necessarily actually drowning, the feeling is very much the same.
The book continues in this vein over other equally fascinating aspects of different kinds of clocks and time-measuring devices, including: biological ones, circadian rhythms and their “equivalents” for (say) microbes or other creatures; variations in understanding on cosmological levels; concerns relating to time at the extremes of the cosmos (from the infinitely large to the infinitely small); neurological time; psychological time; personal time; imposed time; time-measurements submitted to for us to negotiate our way in society; unconscious time; etc. etc. etc. — all presented with the latest developments and studies in various fields and disciplines all over the world… and there are lots and lots of people working in these fields, all “discovering” or hypothesising or speculating on possibilities… Lots and lots of information.
All of this intensity is mercifully interspersed throughout with gentle personal references to the author’s concerns and observations over the years as to how his sons are dealing with and “adjusting” their personal sense of time within society’s impositions. These insertions do provide some much-needed respite to all the information provided. Ironically, they also work to make one aware that, as far a time is concerned, we have much more speculation and experimentation going on than any actual (albeit tentative) conclusions about the subject.
More awkwardly, they make one wonder what most of this has to do with the title of this book… Does time actually fly? Does it have to do with our awareness of it, or is it more an unconscious feeling, particularly when we are concentrating on something (like ploughing through mountains on information using only a hand-held plough..)? What happens to time when we are asleep, or dreaming, or in a coma? And aren’t there times when, rather than flying, one feels that at certain pertinent times, time can seem to stand still and not fly at all… (as in William Blake finding “eternity in an hour”)? Not enough information (!) about that?
In general I found it difficult to get through the heavier parts of this book. I did have a rather humorous thought every time I saw the title of this work: it is the use of a wickedly delicious literary punning device attributed to Groucho Marx, and it helped me get through the book. I append it here for your amusement more than anything else:
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
In a sense, the above is basically what this book is all about. Burdick starts off with the conventional idea of what we call time (related to Greenwich Mean Time) and how it is related essentially to the idea of a day — i.e. the length of time that passes as the earth makes one circuit about its axis. Its all about clocks.
He then examines in great detail all the issues associated with this day-long “segment” of time: how it is divided; how it relates differently to one’s position on the earth’s surface; how we agree that a specific time at a specific place is determined as the “starting point”; how “adjustments are made for the practical use of these divisions; the concerns about the accuracy at any particular time, and what is meant by that; the subtle differences at just about every point of the globe, which makes it imperative to “coordinate” what we mean hen we say “now” (an important distinction, or decision, particularly in the interrelationships between satellite communications world-wide; etc. etc. etc.
Operating, presumably, on the principle of “sink or swim” the reader is plunged, as it were, into the deep waters. The effect, from a certain point of view, is informative, yet equally startling, and perhaps even frightening. Too much information all at once (whatever that last phrase means!!!) — and while one is not necessarily actually drowning, the feeling is very much the same.
The book continues in this vein over other equally fascinating aspects of different kinds of clocks and time-measuring devices, including: biological ones, circadian rhythms and their “equivalents” for (say) microbes or other creatures; variations in understanding on cosmological levels; concerns relating to time at the extremes of the cosmos (from the infinitely large to the infinitely small); neurological time; psychological time; personal time; imposed time; time-measurements submitted to for us to negotiate our way in society; unconscious time; etc. etc. etc. — all presented with the latest developments and studies in various fields and disciplines all over the world… and there are lots and lots of people working in these fields, all “discovering” or hypothesising or speculating on possibilities… Lots and lots of information.
All of this intensity is mercifully interspersed throughout with gentle personal references to the author’s concerns and observations over the years as to how his sons are dealing with and “adjusting” their personal sense of time within society’s impositions. These insertions do provide some much-needed respite to all the information provided. Ironically, they also work to make one aware that, as far a time is concerned, we have much more speculation and experimentation going on than any actual (albeit tentative) conclusions about the subject.
More awkwardly, they make one wonder what most of this has to do with the title of this book… Does time actually fly? Does it have to do with our awareness of it, or is it more an unconscious feeling, particularly when we are concentrating on something (like ploughing through mountains on information using only a hand-held plough..)? What happens to time when we are asleep, or dreaming, or in a coma? And aren’t there times when, rather than flying, one feels that at certain pertinent times, time can seem to stand still and not fly at all… (as in William Blake finding “eternity in an hour”)? Not enough information (!) about that?
In general I found it difficult to get through the heavier parts of this book. I did have a rather humorous thought every time I saw the title of this work: it is the use of a wickedly delicious literary punning device attributed to Groucho Marx, and it helped me get through the book. I append it here for your amusement more than anything else:
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
November 20, 2025
Alan Burdick's Why Time Flies is a deeply personal search for understanding wrapped inside a scientific investigation - part memoir, part detective story, all beautifully human. Burdick opens with a disarming confession: he spent most of his adult life refusing to wear a watch, terrified of time's grip. Now, with twins on the way, he straps on a watch and embarks on a global journey asking the question that haunts everyone: why does time seem to accelerate, slip away, and refuse to be pinned down?
The genius of this book is that Burdick never pretends there's one answer. He visits Michel Siffre in a cave, where a man spent 60 days in darkness and only experienced 35 days passing - demonstrating viscerally how dislocated we become from external time when isolated. He travels to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris to meet Dr. Elisa Arias, who literally coordinates the world's clocks. The revelation: the world's most accurate time doesn't exist in any clock - it exists only on paper, assembled monthly from 50+ national laboratories. Time, Burdick discovers, is a social construct not in a theoretical sense but practically. We synchronize our internal clocks to synchronized external ones so that billions of people can somehow live together.
But what truly elevates this book is Burdick's willingness to be vulnerable. He describes his nighttime wakings at precisely 4:27 a.m., night after night, and realizes with both wonder and terror: "There is a machine in me, or I am a ghost in it." He writes about fatherhood and the temporal dissonance of having twins - time that once felt expansive suddenly compressed by the relentless demands of two infants. His writing moves effortlessly between circadian rhythms, Augustine's Confessions, William James's psychology, climate change impacts on Arctic ecology, and his own preoccupied mind. Each lane enriches the others.
Why Time Flies succeeds because it treats time not as a physics problem but as a lived experience. It acknowledges that we all contain billions of clocks, that we're synchronized to global rhythms we rarely notice, and that underneath all the scientific precision, time remains stubbornly mysterious and intensely personal. Burdick's twin sons are born on the Fourth of July - a date, a fixed point - yet the mystery of when exactly they entered the world remains philosophically unresolved.
The genius of this book is that Burdick never pretends there's one answer. He visits Michel Siffre in a cave, where a man spent 60 days in darkness and only experienced 35 days passing - demonstrating viscerally how dislocated we become from external time when isolated. He travels to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris to meet Dr. Elisa Arias, who literally coordinates the world's clocks. The revelation: the world's most accurate time doesn't exist in any clock - it exists only on paper, assembled monthly from 50+ national laboratories. Time, Burdick discovers, is a social construct not in a theoretical sense but practically. We synchronize our internal clocks to synchronized external ones so that billions of people can somehow live together.
But what truly elevates this book is Burdick's willingness to be vulnerable. He describes his nighttime wakings at precisely 4:27 a.m., night after night, and realizes with both wonder and terror: "There is a machine in me, or I am a ghost in it." He writes about fatherhood and the temporal dissonance of having twins - time that once felt expansive suddenly compressed by the relentless demands of two infants. His writing moves effortlessly between circadian rhythms, Augustine's Confessions, William James's psychology, climate change impacts on Arctic ecology, and his own preoccupied mind. Each lane enriches the others.
Why Time Flies succeeds because it treats time not as a physics problem but as a lived experience. It acknowledges that we all contain billions of clocks, that we're synchronized to global rhythms we rarely notice, and that underneath all the scientific precision, time remains stubbornly mysterious and intensely personal. Burdick's twin sons are born on the Fourth of July - a date, a fixed point - yet the mystery of when exactly they entered the world remains philosophically unresolved.
July 15, 2022
I think this book suffers due to expectations. I was expecting a book on the science of space-time and it's current physics modeling, but instead I got a completely different conversation. This book is on the human perception of time. It uses philosophy, psychology and neuroscience to explain the current understanding of how we as a race process time as well as what we mean by the word
This book is interesting and it got me thinking which is always what you want in a popular science book. It wasn't the book I wanted but I'm not upset that I read it. Worth reading but I wouldn't rush to the bookstore to get it.
This book is interesting and it got me thinking which is always what you want in a popular science book. It wasn't the book I wanted but I'm not upset that I read it. Worth reading but I wouldn't rush to the bookstore to get it.
May 22, 2017
This book is not a quick, easy read. It's dense with scientific studies and philosophical musings, along with the personal stories and viewpoints. It's worth the time if the subject fascinates you but it's slow going from time to time. (No pun intended.)
March 22, 2017
Overall, an excellent book that reflects on both philosophical and scientific approaches to 'time.'
April 1, 2017
An exploration of the slippery topic of time, Why Time Flies introduces the reader to mind-bending concepts, scientists who study how we perceive time’s passage, and the author’s young children, who demonstrate and demand a different approach to the topic. It deserves a better reader than me (some of the explanations went over my head) but I still found it to be an elegant and interesting book.
June 28, 2018
This began with the physics of time but was primarily the psychology/perception of time.
June 27, 2023
bardzo dużo neurobiologii i psychologii a ja się bardziej nastawiłam na inne aspekty czasu (chociaż było to interesujące bo biologia to jednak moje klimaty)
October 6, 2025
dass man mich nochmal für Sinnestäuschungen begeistern kann, hätte ich in meinen kühnsten Träumen nicht kommen gehen
February 27, 2022
Nie wiedziałam, że na taki ciekawy temat da się napisać tak nudną książkę
Displaying 1 - 30 of 206 reviews