Relative perception of time

[realityhack]

Second hand?

Oh very good

Actually it was - £3 or thereabouts inc postage.

Vito - I've heard the 'perception of a year as we get older' comment before and that makes perfect sense. It's more the 'pretty girl (hr=5min) vs dentist (5min=hr)' aspect that interests me.

Perhaps this is a question to put to 'The Last Word' in New Scientist.

[Euro-commuter]

Oh very good

Actually it was - £3 or thereabouts inc postage.

Vito - I've heard the 'perception of a year as we get older' comment before and that makes perfect sense. It's more the 'pretty girl (hr=5min) vs dentist (5min=hr)' aspect that interests me.

Perhaps this is a question to put to 'The Last Word' in New Scientist.

Jonsson makes the point that, e.g. school holidays always seemed so long (at least at the start of them) because we had not mentally divided them up; whereas even a whole year in an adult life is divided up into sections even before we start it, so it seems much shorter.

[realityhack]

So times we make sense of become shorter, and times with no sense of structure drag?

Sounds like the job I'm doing now.

[threaded]

Jonsson makes the point that, e.g. school holidays always seemed so long (at least at the start of them) because we had not mentally divided them up; whereas even a whole year in an adult life is divided up into sections even before we start it, so it seems much shorter.

Correct, you don't notice the beginnings or endings just the middles.

[Euro-commuter]

Correct, you don't notice the beginnings or endings just the middles.

hmm, I failed to make that connection when you made it earlier. Good point.

[swissmike]

That's why it's good to take a block of a few weeks off once in a while and not care what day it is.

When you're working every week and have busy plans every weekend the time just races by

[wendigo100]

That's why it's good to take a block of a few weeks off once in a while and not care what day it is.

But then you wouldn't know when it had ended.

[threaded]

But then you wouldn't know when it had ended.

That's the point, you never do, you only notice it is not the middle anymore.

[wendigo100]

That's the point, you never do, you only notice it is not the middle anymore.

No, you wouldn't. Your block of a few weeks off not caring what day it is could go on indefinitely.

Unless you did care what day it is.

[wendigo100]

I've had contracts that appeared infinite all the way through... as denoted by the apparently never decreasing downcount of hours to the end...

I used to do that at school and college.

I recently started doing it while fielding in a cricket match, which told me I probably need to play something else.