ABSTRACT
Because it refers to a fundamental intuition or, say, a powerful feeling that pops up from time to time within most of us, this simple question seems most appropriate. However, what this question suggests is that time actually seems to go faster as we get older. It would probably be more prudent to ask a similar question, but without starting with “why”. So, does time really seem to go faster as we get older? It depends on what the idea of the passage of time refers to. If you ask an elderly person at some point in the middle of the day if they feel that time is passing quickly, it is far from clear that the answer will be “yes”; rather, the answer may be “no” if that person has nothing to do when the question is asked. There are many differences between the immediate passage of time (and the reading of the time that is passing by) and the impressions left by the experiences of the past, more or less distant, relative to the flow of temporal extents (months, years). In other words, it is possible to receive, for one question, two opposite answers: time passes slowly today (time seems long), but life passes quickly (time passes quickly).
