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Physics
Explains
Why Time
Passes
Faster
As You
Age
By
Ephrat
Livni
getpocket.com
Mind
time and
clock
time are
two
totally
different
things.
They
flow at
varying
rates.
The
chronological
passage
of the
hours,
days,
and
years on
clocks
and
calendars
is a
steady,
measurable
phenomenon.
Yet our
perception
of time
shifts
constantly,
depending
on the
activities
we’re
engaged
in, our
age, and
even how
much
rest we
get. A
paper in
the
journal
European
Review
by Duke
University
mechanical
engineering
professor
Adrian
Bejan,
explains
the
physics
behind
changing
senses
of time
and
reveals
why the
years
seem to
fly by
the
older we
get.
Bejan is
obsessed
with
flow
and,
basically,
believes
physics
principles
can
explain
everything.
He has
written
extensively
about
how the
principles
of flow
in
physics
dictate
and
explain
the
movement
of
abstract
concepts,
like
economics.
Last
year, he
won the
Franklin
Institute’s
Benjamin
Franklin
Medal
for “his
pioneering
interdisciplinary
contributions…and
for
constructal
theory,
which
predicts
natural
design
and its
evolution
in
engineering,
scientific,
and
social
systems.”
In
his
paper,
he
examines
the
mechanics
of the
human
mind and
how
these
relate
to our
understanding
of time,
providing
a
physical
explanation
for our
changing
mental
perception
as we
age.
The
Mind’s
Eye
According
to Bejan—who
reviewed
previous
studies
in a
range of
fields
on time,
vision,
cognition,
and
mental
processing
to reach
his
conclusion—time
as we
experience
it
represents
perceived
changes
in
mental
stimuli.
It’s
related
to what
we see.
As
physical
mental-image
processing
time and
the
rapidity
of
images
we take
in
changes,
so does
our
perception
of time.
And in
some
sense,
each of
us has
our own
“mind
time”
unrelated
to the
passing
of
hours,
days,
and
years on
clocks
and
calendars,
which is
affected
by the
amount
of rest
we get
and
other
factors.
Bejan is
the
first
person
to look
at
time’s
passage
through
this
particular
lens, he
tells
Quartz,
but his
conclusions
rest on
findings
by other
scientists
who have
studied
physical
and
mental
process
related
to the
passage
of time.
These
changes
in
stimuli
give us
a sense
of
time’s
passage.
He
writes:
The
present
is
different
from the
past
because
the
mental
viewing
has
changed,
not
because
somebody’s
clock
rings.
The
“clock
time”
that
unites
all the
live
flow
systems,
animate
and
inanimate,
is
measurable.
The
day-night
period
lasts 24
hours on
all
watches,
wall
clocks
and bell
towers.
Yet,
physical
time is
not mind
time.
The time
that you
perceive
is not
the same
as the
time
perceived
by
another.
Time is
happening
in the
mind’s
eye. It
is
related
to the
number
of
mental
images
the
brain
encounters
and
organizes
and the
state of
our
brains
as we
age.
When we
get
older,
the rate
at which
changes
in
mental
images
are
perceived
decreases
because
of
several
transforming
physical
features,
including
vision,
brain
complexity,
and
later in
life,
degradation
of the
pathways
that
transmit
information.
And this
shift in
image
processing
leads to
the
sense of
time
speeding
up.
This
effect
is
related
to
saccadic
eye
movement.
Saccades
are
unconscious,
jerk-like
eye
movements
that
occur a
few
times a
second.
In
between
saccades,
your
eyes
fixate
and the
brain
processes
the
visual
information
it has
received.
All of
this
happens
unconsciously,
without
any
effort
on your
part. In
human
infants,
those
fixation
periods
are
shorter
than in
adults.
There’s
an
inversely
proportional
relationship
between
stimuli
processing
and the
sense of
time
speeding
by,
Bejan
says.
So, when
you are
young
and
experiencing
lots of
new
stimuli—everything
is
new—time
actually
seems to
be
passing
more
slowly.
As you
get
older,
the
production
of
mental
images
slows,
giving
the
sense
that
time
passes
more
rapidly.
Fatigue
also
influences
saccades,
creating
overlaps
and
pauses
in these
eye
movements
that
lead to
crossed
signals.
The
tired
brain
can’t
transfer
the
information
effectively
when
it’s
simultaneously
trying
to see
and make
sense of
the
visual
information.
It’s
designed
to do
these
things
separately.
This
is what
leads to
athletes’
poor
performance
when
exhausted.
Their
processing
powers
get
muddled
and
their
sense of
timing
is off.
They
can’t
see or
respond
rapidly
to new
situations.
Another
factor
in
time’s
perceived
passage
is how
the
brain
develops.
As the
brain
and body
grow
more
complex
and
there
are more
neural
connections,
the
pathways
that
information
travels
are
increasingly
complicated.
They
branch
like a
tree and
this
change
in
processing
influences
our
experience
of time,
according
to Bejan.
Finally,
brain
degradation
as we
age
influences
perception.
Studies
of
saccadic
eye
movements
in
elderly
people
show
longer
latency
periods,
for
example.
The time
in which
the
brain
processes
the
visual
information
gets
longer,
which
makes it
more
difficult
for the
elderly
to solve
complex
problems.
They
“see”
more
slowly
but feel
time
passing
faster,
Bejan
argues.
A
Lifetime
to
Measure
By
Bejan
became
interested
in this
topic
more
than a
half
century
ago. As
a young
athlete
on a
prestigious
Romanian
basketball
team, he
noticed
that
time
slowed
down
when he
was
rested
and that
this
enabled
him to
perform
better.
Not only
that, he
could
predict
team
performance
in a
game
based on
the time
of day
it was
scheduled.
He tells
Quartz:
Early
games,
at 11
a.m.,
were
poor, a
killer;
afternoon
and
evening
games
were
much
better.
At 11 AM
we were
sleepwalking,
never
mind
what
each of
us did
during
the
night.
It
became
so clear
to me
that I
knew at
the
start of
the
season,
when the
schedule
was
announced,
which
games
will be
bad.
Games
away,
after
long
trips
and bad
sleep
were
poor,
home
games
were
better,
for the
same
reason.
In
addition,
I had a
great
coach
who
preached
constantly
that the
first
duty of
the
player
is to
sleep
regularly
and
well,
and to
live
clean.
Now he’s
experienced
how
“mind
time”
changes
over the
much
longer
span of
his
whole
life.
“During
the past
20 years
I
noticed
how my
time is
slipping
away,
faster
and
faster,
and how
I am
complaining
that I
have
less and
less
time,”
he says.
It’s a
sentiment
he hears
echoed
by many
around
him.
Still,
he
notes,
we’re
not
entirely
prisoners
of time.
The
clocks
will
continue
to tick
strictly,
days
will go
by on
the
calendar,
and the
years
will
seem to
fly by
ever
faster.
By
following
his
basketball
coach’s
advice—sleeping
well and
living
clean—Bejan
says we
can
alter
our
perceptions.
This, in
some
sense,
slows
down
mind
time.
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