Q. As children, it seemed we had to wait an eternity to wait for something to happen. Now, the Sunday paper that just came is here once more. Why is it that as we age, time seems to race along?

A. Why time often seems to go faster in old age is not well understood, but an hour, a month or a year is a significantly larger part of the lifetime of a 6-year-old than it is of an 80-year-old. Because of this, Stephen Hawking and others have suggested that the difference in perceptions of time amounts to a specific mathematical ratio.

Image Credit... Victoria Roberts

The philosopher and psychologist William James quoted approvingly a passage from a 19th-century French philosopher to that effect but suggested that relative age could not totally explain the phenomenon, and that the monotony of the events of old age compared with the vividness and novelty of the experiences of youth must also be considered.