Why time flies with The New Yorker's Alan Burdick

Grow Big Always

Experiencing time pass has to be one of the weirdest things. It surrounds everything around us yet is incredibly inconsistent. One moment it’s molasses slow, the next it was like it was never there.

Scientists and philosophers have tried to explain time, how our brain makes it possible, for ions. Did we invent it? How do we all have such a unified experience with time? Is time passing or are we passing time? “Now” is a squirmy thing, the closer you get to it the harder it is to pin down. Time seems to be a sort of creepy mystery quietly packed with discovery and at least for me, it’s something I work hard at slowing way down.

I dared to talk about time with the New Yorker’s Alan Burdick. His book Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation, digs into all these things. It’s a beautifully written book that will change the way you think about the past and present. Alan is a staff writer and former senior editor at The New Yorker and a frequent contributor to Elements, the magazine’s science-and-tech blog. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, GQ, Discover, Best American Science and Nature Writing.

Alan and I talk about all things time from some brain-blowing points of view, so be sure to make room for this episode. No doubt, it will fly by.

Art credit: Igor Morski

Music credit: Jim Croce, Time in a Bottle