A brilliant, witty, and thought-provoking trip by The New Yorker's science and tech editor and National Book Award finalist as he attempts to understand his interior clock, what we know about time, and why we are all so fascinated by its passing.Why does time slow down when we're bored, speed up in the summer, and fly by as we get older? From the very beginning of time, we have wondered about it. In Why Time Flies, Alan Burdick points out, "We talk about time all the time: we find or lose time, like a set of keys; we save and spend it, like money. Time creeps, crawls, flies, flees, flows, and stands still; it is abundant or scarce; it weighs on us. Bells toll for a 'long' or a 'short' time, as if their sound could be measured with a ruler. Childhood recedes, deadlines loom. 'Would time still be time for us if we could not waste or budget it?'Now, in a stunning blend of science reportage, contemplation, and bemused personal pursuit Burdick spends time with scientists who study time and the time-keepers who keep it straight today. He jumps free fall (among other experiments) to see if that makes time go faster or slower and observes his young twins as they discern the difference among yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He interviews the woman in Paris who is in charge of the world's clocks, participates in experiments with renowned scientists, relates experiences of months' long stays in a dark cave, travels to the Arctic to spend weeks in constant light, jumps from a 100-foot tower to test gravity and stress-related time perception, reveals how time became a measurement, and when at one time he had refused to wear a watch or look at his nightstand clock.Elegant, entertaining, and discerning first-rate science, Why Time Flies is for anyone who lies awake at night listening to the clock tick, wonders what time is, worries about where it's going and whether they're making the most of it.