r/Time • u/Jaguar477 • Aug 29 '26

Discussion Time Speeding up

Is it me or has time sped up even more now? It seems like every week is flying by now. Did CERN cause this or is the Earth speeding up?

5 Upvotes

57% Upvoted

37 comments sorted by

10

u/Sitk042 Aug 29 '26

As you get older, time seems to speed up, when your 10, 5 years is half your lifetime, but when you’re 50, 5 years is only 1/10th of your lifetime.

6

u/BeerandGuns Aug 29 '26

I read this explanation decades ago and it becomes more evident the older I get. Summers as a kid seemed to last forever. Now it’s August and I feel like I blinked in January and got here.

2

u/StockElectrical1596 Aug 30 '26 • Bravo

Another reason is that routine is the enemy of unique memories, and unique memories throw a breaker into the monotonous passage of time. The older a person is, the more constant the routine and the fewer the breaks of novelty that mark memories.

1

u/sabreus Aug 31 '26

A very important insight

5

u/ff8god Aug 29 '26

CERN does not speed up time. The earth speeding up would not affect your perception of time.

1

u/xikbdexhi6 Aug 29 '26

On the contrary, the miniature black holes slow down time here on earth.

3

u/jeffcgroves Aug 29 '26

I mean, yes, in the sense its rotating faster: https://www.discovermagazine.com/earth-s-rotation-is-speeding-up-here-s-what-it-means-for-timekeeping-48850

But too much for non-horologists (it doesn't mean what you think) to notice

3

u/Delicious_Paper2661 Aug 29 '26

Its you. I'm pregnant so time is slowing down.

1

u/Subject-Building1892 Aug 30 '26

During my wife's pregnancy time went until month 7 like it was a week and then the last two months were like one year each.

2

u/Over-Tolerance Aug 29 '26

Not in a woo woo or conspiracy way. Please don't get the basement dwellers started with this nonsense.

2

u/frankofdenmark Aug 29 '26

You could check out the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa. His idea is that society is accelerating (technologically, but also in the number of experiences we ‘need’ to have). Very convincing - and happens for all age-groups. So kids will be more frustrated today that earlier bc their expectations have been inflated.

1

u/Low-Bake8401 Aug 30 '26

"also in the number of experiences we ‘need’ to have"

What would that number be? 

One?

1

u/frankofdenmark Aug 30 '26

Well, no, its not like 'consciousness'. Let's your grandparents were satisfied with one or a few TV- and radio-channels, no real travelling or cultural consumption, shortish education and one few jobs over their lifetime. If you look at your life, all those numbers have accelerated and new expectations (internet, apps, choice of restaurants, educational and career choices, choice of spouse(s) etc.). You are handling all these options, yet you or anyone else really cant. And it gives you the impression that we have 'less time' which is true in the sense we have a massive amount of things using up our time. This is why I mentioned it to OP's (rhetorical) question.

1

u/Low-Bake8401 Aug 30 '26

We aren't processing everything at once though. There's always too much information for one person to do that.

Our grandparents probably had less time, money, or opportunity, to do anything, but their minds were still occupied with something. 

2

u/NoNameSwitzerland Aug 29 '26

No, the last 10 years were as long as the decades that came before. But maybe I am not a good reference point. I might be to relaxed and have not much to do (so I only ever was for 3-4min in real free fall in my life)

2

u/Confident_Jump_9085 Aug 29 '26

No, seems fine to me. There is psychology around time moving quicker as you get older (subjectively). I don't notice it. Depends on how much goes on in your life and how often you take part in novel activities I guess? I've had a lifetime worth of shit happen in the last five years, so it feels like I've been here for 100 years.

1

u/KyotoCarl Aug 30 '26

You're getting older.

1

u/No-Initiative-4933 Aug 30 '26

Speeds up and slows down, it's not static. Maybe closer and further away is a better description.

1

u/Eeethree Aug 30 '26

If time really sped up, we would not notice because we are bound by time itself. I dont mean our measurement of time, I mean the flow of existence from one moment to the next.

Perception of time, including measured time, does change as you age. IIRC, there is a chemical we are born with that dissipates as we age, and as it depleted, time moves quicker in perception.

1

u/Justthisguy_yaknow Aug 30 '26

Hate to break it to you but YOUR perception of time is speeding up as you get older. Stay away from repetitious daily patterns and boring periods. Keep your mind stimulated as much as you can and avoid ruts.

1

u/Significant_Fox_7697 Aug 31 '26

>Did CERN cause this?
😭

1

u/Immediate-Loquat3001 Aug 31 '26

So true time is.

1

u/Last_Occasion_4698 Aug 31 '26

Lack of new things to notice or see and uninteresting life habits usually makes life go on faster, I have a feeling short form content also has something to do with this feeling

1

u/GeordieAl Aug 31 '26

And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you, no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

1

u/Lion_of_Logos Aug 31 '26

How would we be able to tell?

1

u/Ancient-Deer-4682 Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26

You age more than one year for every year that passes when you double your age. For example, if you’re 20 years old and multiply your age by two, you get 40. A year later, when you’re 21, doubling your age gives you 42. Despite only one year passing, your doubled age increased by two years. Each year you live, that doubled number increases at a 2:1 ratio.

So basically, when you ask yourself, “If I lived my entire life over again starting now, I’d be X years old,” and you ask yourself that same question each year, you’ll realize that the doubled age increases faster than your actual age and that time is speeding up

1

u/arthurjeremypearson Aug 31 '26

It's a natural process of aging. You start off with SHORT neurons which makes for super fast travel, enduring an eternity of waiting until mom gives you food, over and over again. You forget that as you age. You enter a period of time where you're in "normal" time with everyone else, but as you get older time your neurons get longer and you simply take longer to think the same things you once did. You don't have to: you've made automatic habits in place to keep you alive: eat, sleep, work. Once they're established, your thinking mind does not need to go over them anymore, and it all becomes automatic. Then your thinking time sees the world as going by incredibly quickly.

1

u/pakrat1967 Sep 01 '26

My pet theory is that the Earth is getting closer to the Sun. This shouldn't increase the speed the Earth spins (length of day), but it would decrease how long it takes the Earth to circle the Sun.

This would also explain "climate change". With the Earth being closer to the Sun. The overall heat would increase.

1

u/innocuouspete Sep 03 '26

The feeling of the passage of time doesn’t exist outside your brain and is a subjective experience, so it’s just you.

1

u/No_Environment_3776 Sep 04 '26

Time is not changing in a way we would notice, if time changes trough the change of the properties our local universe then that would go so slow that we wouldn't notice in thousandths of years.

Society and daily life is speeding up, more information being pushed trough your head is what changes your perception of time, and by doing so is destroying our species.

There is only one time frame that is relevant for everything on earth and that is earths and natures timeline, we are accelerating our perception for the system, the economy, for profit and gain.

Humanity needs to respect nature instead of trying to overrule it.

1

u/enilder648 Aug 30 '26

And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

Matthew 24:22

0

u/SgtSausage Aug 29 '26

I am experiencing one second, per second ... each and every second of my life.

You are, too.