Time Warped (Claudia Hammond)

An interesting discussion of the many ways in which our perception of time can warp. The author comes back again and again to the Holiday Paradox - the fact that while on a vacation trip, seeing new things and having new experiences every day, the time seems to fly by, but after returning home and looking back on it the trip seems to have lasted a very long time. How is this possible? There are many theories, and she discusses them all, but the most likely has to do with attention and memory. When we are focused on things because they are new an unexpected, we lose track of the passage of time and are surprised when suddenly it is dinner time, so the day seems to have gone quickly. Looking back, however, we have so many separate memories it seems impossible that they all fit into that one small time frame. There is a lot more here, including why time seems to speed up as we get older and how to make better predictions about our own future. At times the material seemed scattered, with less organization than I would have liked, but overall it was interesting and informative.