Can Time Slow Down?

Ponca City, We Love You writes "Does time slow down when you are in a traffic accident or other life threatening crisis like Neo dodging bullets in slow-motion in The Matrix? To find out, researchers developed a perceptual chronometer where numbers flickered on the screen of a watch-like unit. The scientists adjusted the speed at which the numbers flickered until it was too fast for the subjects to see. Then subjects were put in a Suspended Catch Air Device, a controlled free-fall system in which 'divers' are dropped backwards off a platform 150 feet up and land safely in a net. Subjects were asked to read the numbers on the perceptual chronometer as they fell [video]. The bottom line: While subjects could read numbers presented at normal speeds during the free-fall, they could not read them at faster-than-normal speeds. 'We discovered that people are not like Neo in The Matrix,' Eagleman said. 'The answer to the paradox is that time estimation and memory are intertwined: the volunteers merely thought the fall took a longer time in retrospect'."

i thought time slowed down enough for a 1st post

[m1ndrape (971736)]

damn you agent smith, no wait, damn you oracle...no wait....damn you all!

*shakes* fist

Short answer: No

[by Anonymous Coward]

Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooo

dupe

[Sylvak (967868)]

I remember reading this here a year or 2 back.

Re:dupe

[eln (21727)]

It only seems like it was a year or 2 ago. Actually, you're just remembering this article from when you read it 10 minutes ago.

Stupid Question

[Zashi (992673)]

What a stupid question. Of course it can. Ever had to sit through 3 meetings in a row?

Turns a matter of hours into a matter of weeks.

Hmmm...

[geekmansworld (950281)]

Sounds a bit weak to me. Though such an event can be frightening or exhilarating, you KNOW that it's coming, and you KNOW that it's perfectly safe. To me, the experience of going over a roller coaster hill is different than the experience of being involved in an auto accident. I say more research is required.

Re:Hmmm...

[Karl0Erik (1138443)]

Exactly. I suggest strapping chronometers to people's windshields and involving them in accidents without asking them.

Re:

[nine-times (778537)]

I also am unclear as to what they think they're testing. They're faced with the question, "Does time really seem to slow down?" and in response they test, "Are people able to see and process things faster?"

It's not clear to me what that the test answers the question. Does time *actually* slow down, and in a Neo-like state we can stop to look around while bullets are flying at us? Of course not. But do things *seem* to move more slowly? It seems so.

Re:

[gunnk (463227)]

The same thing crossed my mind and I wonder if they didn't miss something important.

What they test was weather you can read numbers faster during high-adrenaline moments. That does NOT test how fast you perceive time to pass. The maximum speed with which you can read numbers flashing by is dependent on multiple things:

1) The speed and method the eye itself uses to capture "frames" of image data.
2) The speed of any low-level image "pre-processing" that may occur outside of the brain (i.e.: in the eye or th

Re:

[nine-times (778537)]

The question is whether that apparent slowing is something you experience at the time and can take advantage of (i.e. if time slows to one-third speed, can you read numbers or dodge bullets three times as quickly?) or if it's an illusion your memory retroactively imposes.

Still, I think those are multiple different questions:

• Is the apparent slowing something actually allowing you to do *something* better in that short period of time?
• Does the apparent slowing allow you read numbers more quickly?
• Does the

A shocking result

[mattpalmer1086 (707360)]

I agree that some kind of life-or-death situation needs to be involved. I have experienced time-slowdown (or rather, perceptual speed-up) twice in my life, both in very threatening situations. Both times the feeling was coupled with a deep sense of calmness.

The first time, I was attacked by a soccer hooligan, who smashed a bottle on my head with no warning, from behind. I remember turning round and seeing the thug waving the broken bottle - but everything had gone into slow motion. I could literally read every move he was going to make and counter it, with no apparent effort on my part, matrix-style. After I'd disposed of his bottle, I threw him around, then I played with him a bit without hurting him (much). I had the sense that I was far back, watching it all.

Afterwards, I was quite shocked at what had happened - I am not a fighter, I am really quite a wimp. Thinking about it later, it made sense to me, that some kind of fight-or-flight instinct had kicked in, allowing me to react instinctually much faster than normal, with my normal consciousness somewhat suspended.

The second time it happened, I was in a car that went into a 360 spin down a hill, eventually crashing into a lamp-post, totalling the car. Again, I felt calm, I could see everything that was happening as if in slow motion, but there wasn't anything I could do, so unlike the fight situation, I can't judge whether this perception had any practical effect.

I find it interesting that you can't count numbers any faster in threatening situations - but I would wager that only certain, survival oriented abilities are accelerated in threatening situations. I wouldn't have been surprised if the ability to read numbers was actually worse in those situations! More research is clearly needed...

Re:A shocking result

[PCM2 (4486)]

I agree that some kind of life-or-death situation needs to be involved. I have experienced time-slowdown (or rather, perceptual speed-up) twice in my life, both in very threatening situations. Both times the feeling was coupled with a deep sense of calmness.

Happened to me, too. I was in the passenger seat of a car when I noticed a flare lying on a stretch of dark highway. My friend, the driver, hadn't noticed it. I was wondering what the heck it was doing there when all of a sudden, ahead in the car's headlights, I saw something in the road.

What went through my head next was something like: "Oh man this isn't going to be good am I going to die now? I better have my seatbelt on at least yes I do that's good then too bad it's only a lap belt I'm probably going to hit the dashboard man that thing looks like it's made out of reinforced steel that's going to hurt I wonder if I should try to brace myself on something ahh I'm involuntarily turning my head does that make me a wimp? anyway oh well I guess I've done everything I can do to get ready it's been a pretty good run here goes nothing."

A split-second later our '72 Chevy Nova smashed straight through two cars, which had been parallel-parked across the two fast lanes of the freeway, at 65mph. (The driver had never seen the cars, either -- I think he maybe should have been wearing glasses.) We tore the two cars in half -- ripped their backs off and kept going -- blew out all four of our own tires, and yes I did indeed smash my face up against the steel reinforcement of the dashboard. Other than that, we were fine. I peeled my baseball hat off the shattered glass of the windshield and we got out of there, moments before another car smashed into the back of our wreckage at speed and turned the Nova into a crumpled-up cube.

All I could think was: "Cooooooolll."

Re:Hmmm...

[thrawn_aj (1073100)]

Before I get flamed, allow me to clarify the obvious: time doesn't slow down because humans feel endangered. Our perception of time may slow down because of psychological and physiological conditions.

If I read the summary correctly, they have shown (to a limited extent) that EVEN our perception of time does NOT change during such events. What they concluded therefore is that our MEMORY is more to blame for compositing (AFTER the fact) an apparent slowdown or speedup of time during the event.

FTA:

'The answer to the paradox is that time estimation and memory are intertwined: the volunteers merely thought the fall took a longer time in retrospect'."

[emphasis mine]

So, the posters so far have been stating the obvious, but seem to have missed this point. The researchers were trying to TEST the long-held conventional belief that our perceptions do slow down or speed up during certain special events. They seem to have come up with a startling result - our perceptions stay pretty much the same, our later MEMORIES seem to be edited after the fact to make it seem that we perceived time differently during the event. Brains are so devious. *cackle* *rubs hands in glee*

Re:

[F34nor (321515)]

Well that doesn't matter for shit either way because in events like that your memory is terrible. In experiments where they simulated bank robberies the witnesses have terrible recollections of the perp etc. People are fucking terrible memory devices and that's all there is to it. Unless you've been trained for situational awareness or use mnemonics you're just pissing most of the data down the drain.

I expect this experiment is spot on and here's why. Knowing things are going to be ok sitting on your ass in

Re:Seconded...

[Sanat (702)]

In truth, time is an illusion, however in the Earth plane we use it as a point of reference

About 15 years ago my friend Rick and I were out deer hunting and both of us got big deer (Missouri corn fed ones) and we were hauling them out of the valley on a 4 wheeler. They were tied on the front carrier.

There is one point where the edge of the bedrock stick out and it is always wet and icy in that vicinity. I told Rick that we better walk the 4-wheeler out in this area but he is one of those large barrel chested men with mammoth arms and he just put his hand on the front of the 4 wheeler and held the front down as i was cautiously driving up the steep slope. I had gone about 15 feet when he slipped on the ice and let go and the 4 wheeler immediately flipped backward throwing me down 15 feet onto my back with a 4 wheeler and an additional 450 lbs of deer tied on falling toward me.

Suddenly everything moved in very slow motion as it came towards me ( just as you experienced with your shot) and I merely lifted my legs up and positioned them and had plenty of time to catch the 4 wheeler's seat with my legs and toss it about 20 feet away.

To my perception all of this took about 10 seconds to accomplish. To Rick's eyes it happened in a flash and he could not comprehend how my reflexes were so quick... in reality they were not. I simply was on a different timeline than he during that moment.

I agree that Time is only a perception.

Re:Seconded...

[Xformer (595973)]

In truth, time is an illusion...

Lunch time, doubly so.

I dunno...

[gardyloo (512791)]

...if I believe that conclusion. When I was browsing on Slashdot one April, and everything turned pink and ponyish, I swear that day lasted several months, at least.

A more interesting question

[bogaboga (793279)]

I have always wondered why we have 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute and so on. What criteria were used to put these metrics in place? By the way, when did time as we know it, begin?

What would be the problem with metric time for example?

Re:

[eln (21727)]

Thank the ancient Babylonians, who used a base 60 [st-and.ac.uk] number system. They came up with the concept of 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour, 24 hours to a day.

Re:A more interesting question

[jandrese (485)]

The advantage of using 60 is that it's an abundant number so it is easy to split your hour in 2 parts, or 3, or 4, or 5, or 6, or 10, etc... This comes up a lot in the middle ages when people need to precisely measure stuff but have only relatively crude instruments with only integral markings on them. That's also why there are 12 inches in a foot instead of 10, because it's a lot easier to split 12 into 3 or 4 parts (a common operation) than 10.

Re:

[Chysn (898420)]

> What would be the problem with metric time for example?

You don't say what you mean by "metric" time, but my guess is that you're asking about using a temporal analog of the current systems of linear distance, weight, volume, etc.

If that's what you mean, the problem with that is that our current time system doesn't just measure one thing. It tries to measure the rotation of the earth in one day, and then it tries to measure the time it takes to

Re:

[bogaboga (793279)]

You don't say what you mean by "metric" time, but my guess is that you're asking about using a temporal analog of the current systems of linear distance, weight, volume, etc.

What I mean is something like this:

• 100 seconds in 1 minute

• 100 minutes in 1 hour

• 100 hours in a day etc

By the way do the 12 months in a year have anything to do with the 12 hours in a day?

Time doesn't slow down but our perception does?

[zalas (682627)]

I think our perception of the passage of time in the past is purely based on our memories. Thus, certain things that are very memorable will probably mess around with our perception of the flow of time during that moment. For example, if you remember nothing after passing out from drinking and wake up the next day, you probably wouldn't feel like you actually spent all that time lying on the floor.

I dunno....

[framauro13 (1148721)]

I question the testing method. It should include subjects sitting in a cubicle after 4:30pm on a Friday.

Slow down?!? What?!?

[jbarr (2233)]

Heck, at 42, time is moving forward faster than it ever has. Days, weeks, and months are going by quicker than I ever remember, and I see NO sign of it slowing.

Seriously, though, I see it as a matter of perspective. When I was younger, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" seemed to be the mantra because it seemed to take forever for things to happen. Maybe it's because I have adopted more patience over the years, so the waiting isn't as noticeable.

Re:Slow down?!? What?!?

[BigBlueOx (1201587)]

Days, weeks, and months are going by quicker than I ever remember, and I see NO sign of it slowing.

My favorite theory about that:
    at age 5, 1 year = 1/5 of your life
    at age 15, 1 year = 1/15 of your life
    at age 40, 1 year = 1/40 of your life
and in our heads we measure time relative to our lives.

Well, I like it, so it's true.

Re:

[yourlord (473099)]

I have a pet theory on that effect, as I've noticed the exact same thing. When you are 5 years old an hour is a LONG time. A week is almost eternity. At 20 an hour doesn't seem as long as it used to. I'm now 36 and time is flying by. Years are clicking off the way weeks seemed to when I was 5-10..

It doesn't bode well as if you extrapolate this phenomenon out to the age of 70 then the last decade of your life will go by in what seems like a month.

I attribute this effect to the amount of time your brain has e

OMG! It actually does work....

[DRAGONWEEZEL (125809)]

That's why I can type all this and then hit

And then I get this message!

Slow Down Cowboy!
Slashdot requires you to wait longer between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.

It's been 0.2 seconds since you hit 'reply'.

Chances are, you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button to accidentally reuse a form. Please try again. If the problem persists, and all other options have been tried, contact the site administrator.

Time distortion is a hypnotic phenomena

[nido (102070)]

The human perception of Time is a subjective experience. With training, one can either speed up or slow down how fast things seem to be going.

What usually happens is that the boring minutes seem to drag, and the pleasurable moments pass too quickly. One can use hypnosis/etc to switch this around, so that boring hours can seem to pass in minutes, and the good times seem to last forever. Bandler addresses this in his Design Human Engineering [designhuma...eering.com] system. Milton Erickson, M.D. (psychiatrist who specialized in fixing people with hypnosis) also used time distortion in his work, iirc (and was the original inspiration for much of the NLP founders' developments). Any good book on hypnotic phenomena should cover time distortion too...

Only proved tachypsyche is not cognitive

[redelm (54142)]

... this experiment has to be the dumbest ever. Made without a shred of preliminary investigation. "Tachypsyche" produces tunnel vision under extreme fight stress. It is well known to martial artists and some gunfighters. It probably should be research, but not with counterproductive tools.

Invalidating this experiment...

[dex22 (239643)]

Perception is a perceived experience. Time goes forward at an undetermined rate. These are fundamental. What isn't is the eye's ability to see fast-changing light patterns. Nothing presumes that even if perception of time changes, the eye has the ability to speed up and see something which is otherwise a blur.

This isn't a measurement of perception, but of the characteristics of eye refresh rates under stress.

I would have loved to have been on the IRB Board that oversaw this study, and read the protocol...

Completely absurd experimentation method

[tygt (792974)]

If time perception slows down - in other words, if your brain goes into overdrive and processes events more rapidly - during extremely stressful situations, you're not going to be able to measure it in an experiment where the subject doesn't experience extreme stress, and a safe simulation of free-fall is unlikely to be stressful enough, especially when the subject has been assured that they're in no danger.

Danger is what it's all about, or perception of danger. The adrenaline rush of the free-fall experience is only there because subconsciously you're still somewhat afraid, but the whole mind isn't involved in the fear.

This would be like saying "Can people exhibit super-human strength under extreme stress?" (eg the "mom lifts car off of baby" stories) and testing it by saying "ok so pretend that your baby is under the car and lift the car up ok". Sure buddy.

Next waste of time and money....

Re:Newsflash.

[ResidntGeek (772730)]

Oh, shut the fuck up. You'd have said the same thing if they'd reported that the brain went into overdrive and could read the faster-than-normal numbers.

Re:Newsflash.

[tzhuge (1031302)]

Even though you've been modded Troll, I pretty much agree with the sentiment expressed by your post. This meme of 'that study's conclusion is so obvious; what morons funded it' is getting really tiresome. It wasn't that long ago when it was obvious that the Earth is flat and sailing far enough takes you off the edge.

That was never "obvious".

[khasim (1285)]

Greeks knew the world was round.

The Church declared that it was flat. Despite the obvious fact that it was round.

Re:That was never "obvious".

[Bandman (86149)]

I don't know about that, but I know they had an issue with a heliocentric universe.

Re:That was never "obvious".

[by Anonymous Coward]

I have a problem with the heliocentric UNIVERSE!

Re:That was never "obvious".

[AKAImBatman (238306)]

They accused Galileo of heresy and placed him under permanent house arrest specifically for following Copernicus' model.

Actually? No. Galileo met resistance from the church because of his belief in a heliocentric model, but he was not arrested for it. Far from it, in fact. He was a good friend of the Pope and had his ideas seriously considered for a time. Eventually he was instructed by the Pope to keep his writings in the theoretical realm and to present both sides of the argument.

Where Galileo eventually tripped up was that he used the character of Simplicus to represent the Pope's opinions in his writings, effectively calling the Pope a simpleton and fool. This didn't go over very well with the Vatican and he stood trial for heresy. His sentence was actually one of imprisonment, but (perhaps as a last gesture from a former friend) his sentence was reduced to house arrest.

As much as I disagree with the Catholic Church's actions both past and present, I do wish that people would stop using Galileo's arrest as an example unless they well and truly understand the history behind the affair.

The church never said it was flat!

[Half-pint HAL (718102)]

Two monks did, though. Very convenient that they did, because it gave a man with an axe to grind (whether it was against religion in general or the Vatican in particular) a way to discredit the Catholic Church.

Read Late Birth of a Flat Earth, one of the essays in Stephen Jay Gould's book Dinosaur in a Haystack. I'll not spoil the story for you by quoting any more than this: the supposed Dark and Medieval consensus for a flat earth - is entirely mythological.

(One thing missing from the article. No seafaring nation could ever have believed that the world was flat. Ships fall below the horizon. Distant lands fall below the horizon. Any sailor afraid of "falling off" would be ... well ... a farmer.(

HAL.

Re:Newsflash.

[ResidntGeek (772730)]

The study was measuring the PERCEPTION of the passage of time. If you could have definitively predicted the results of this study beforehand, then congratulations! You know more about neurology than anyone on earth!

Re:Newsflash.

[SL Baur (19540)]

Except there wasn't any scientific evidence back then to know whether the Earth really was flat or not.

Sorry, no. As the other posters wrote, the Greeks measured the curvature of the earth to a pretty good estimate 2000 years ago. It was this reason that Columbus couldn't find funding. Everyone who knew better, knew you couldn't possibly sail all the way to Asia without killing everyone and they were correct. Finding something in the middle was an accident.

The speed of light in a vacuum may be constant, but once other effects start getting involved the picture changes. I think this was an interesting experiment, though I'd like to see it repeated under the same and different conditions. You can't prove anything scientifically unless the experiment is repeatable (by other people).

Re:Newsflash.

[timster (32400)]

the only way for time to slow down is to travel faster than the speed of light

Whoops -- a simple mistake but a big one (like saying that you have to factor prime numbers to break encryption). No, all travel at any speed causes time dilation. The effect simply isn't significant unless you're travelling at a significant fraction of the speed of light.

Of course, to be pedantic it's all relative (and that's where the equations get wacky).

Re:Newsflash.

[masterzora (871343)]

You're not being pedantic enough. If one travels faster than c, one goes backwards in time. If one travels at c, time is constant in that reference frame while time passes in other frames. If one travels less than c, time dilation occurs.

My point? While you are correct in pointing out that any travel will cause effects, but significant effects are observed only for a significant fraction of the speed of light, you didn't mention that the original poster was even more wrong than you said since faster than light speeds cause time to reverse, not to go slower (though, obviously, your velocity at that point also changes how quickly time reverses).

Re:Newsflash.

[Knuckles (8964)]

I just tried it. People lie to you.

Re:

[jasonmicron (807603)]

Time itself does not slow down

Ahh, but it can. Crank up that falling airplane to near the speed of light. Before it hits the ground, we all will be one second older than the occupants.

Re:Newsflash.

[bkr1_2k (237627)]

At speed of light (or near) by the time we age one second the plane will have already buried itself into the ground killing all occupants. So you're right, we'd be one second older, but mostly because they'd be dead. So time doesn't really slow down, death speeds up. Your argument fails.

Re:Newsflash.

[ShieldW0lf (601553)]

Your higher brain functions work to make your consciousness a seamless experience. Your lower brain functions, more concerned with survival, do not attempt to do this. Thus, when the body is in a fight or flight mode, time seems to speed up, slow down and become disjointed. This is how your primitive lower brain functions work, they don't care about making it seamless, they care about processing the data your senses are giving as close to real time as possible so you survive.

Re:

[Alpha830RulZ (939527)]

Um, no. Though the time is takes to open a bag of Doritos does seem to expand to approximately infinity, for some reason.

Re:Understatement of new Millennium

[FroBugg (24957)]

I'm glad you've taken a break out of your busy schedule of ending world hunger, finding a replacement for oil, and curing every disease to comment on Slashdot. It's good to have you here.

Re:

[jeffmeden (135043)]

Don't thank me, my boss mandates slashdot breaks every few hours so that we don't get burned out.