. . . How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men’s lives.
Shakespeare, Richard II

Time—it’s just not what it used to be. The natural rhythms of seasonal and diurnal time have been replaced by managing our lives in nanoseconds.

We don’t let time pass—we try to control it.

Author Eva Hoffman and neuroscientist Richard Restak take a critical look at the concept of time and how our brain perceives it.

Restak begins with a short illustrated presentation about the ways we experience time based on the brain’s organization and functioning.

He considers how subjective time relates to elapsed time within the brain, the role of attention in time perception, and why time seems to fly by when we’re older.

Hoffman and Restak then discuss the nature of time in our world.

 While we are living longer than ever, we feel we have ever less time. What effect do computers and instant communications have on us? What are we learning about the process and parameters of human time?

 Hoffman believes that our changing relationship to time is a paradigm shift of which we should take note.

Restak is a clinical professor of neurology at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Science and the author of 19 books on the human brain. Hoffman is a visiting professor of literature at MIT, taught at MIT and Hunter College, and lectures widely. Her book Time (Picador) is available for signing after the program.

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