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Time travel stories have been a staple of the science fiction genre for the past century. Good science fiction stories often pay homage to the fundamentals of scientific knowledge of the time. Thus, we see time travel stories of the variety typified by H. G. Wells as set within the context of a Newtonian universe: a three-dimensional Euclidean spatial manifold that changes along an inexorable arrow of time. By the early to mid-twentieth century, time travel stories evolved to take into account the features of an Einsteinian universe: a four-dimensional spacetime continuum that curves and in which time has the character of a spatial dimension (that is, there can be local variations or “warps”). More recently, time travel stories have incorporated features of quantum theory: phenomena such as superposition and entanglement suggest the possibility of parallel or many universes, many minds, or many histories. Indeed, the sometimes counter-intuitive principles and effects of quantum theory have invigorated time travel stories. Bizarre phenomena like negative energy density (the Casimir effect) lend their strangeness to the already odd character of time travel stories.

Time Travel [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

bobulate:

Matt Danzico has taken on a year-long project to explore how new experiences affect his perception of time with The Time Hack:

An experiment aimed at exploring whether our perception of time is influenced by our actions. [I]t aims to test whether time itself is flexible and whether our brains measure time differently than the clocks around us. …. Experts argue that when one engages in a new experience, that person’s perception of time differs from when that individual engages in a mundane or repetitive task.

So he’s set out to do just that. For 365 days:

I engage in a new experience to understand how my perception of time speeds and slows in relation to each event. Can I accurately gauge how long each new experience lasted? Do I remember the details of the new experiences more accurately than repetitive events during the day?

Every day, I’m surprised that I’m surprised looking over the recordings (and findings I can’t share with Matt as he’s prohibited from viewing the stopwatch and video recordings himself). Some favorites:

• Holding a dictionary in your hand to calm nerves when public speaking • Learning some words in Swahili feels achievable• Watching paint dry can, quite surprisingly, be pretty enjoyable to read about• Gifting balloons to strangers• And, the history of the common fork

While embarrassing at times that is sort of entirely the point. If uncomfortable and new, our perception of time differs from what would have been. Looking forward to the 348 days.

Hacking time

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