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Why Does TIME Speed Up As You Age?" - Feynman's Disturbing Discovery
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- Published on Mar 13, 2026
- Do you think time flows at a constant speed? It doesn't. Do you think the years feel shorter just because you are "busy"? You aren't. The answer will break your brain, because it turns out that your feeling of "time flying" is directly linked to the most depressing law in physics: Entropy.
In this video, inspired by Richard Feynman’s legendary teaching style, we explore the disturbingly simple physics behind why a summer afternoon felt like an eternity when you were a child, but a whole decade disappears in a blink when you are an adult. We move beyond biology and look at the "jiggling atoms" of your memory to understand how the brain processes reality.
How is that possible? Imagine your memory is an intelligent movie camera. When you are young and the world is high-entropy (chaotic and new), your mental camera records at 120 frames per second. But as you age and settle into routines, your brain compresses the data, dropping the frame rate to a blur to save energy. We will slice up the "sausage" of space-time to show you exactly how a predictable life collapses your timeline.
What does that mean for your reality? It means that order is the thief of time. To physically slow down your perception of existence, you must stop seeking comfort and start injecting chaos back into your system.
📚 Based on:
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol I (Chapter 1: Atoms in Motion & Chapter 46: Ratchet and Pawl)
Read online free: www.feynmanlec...
The Character of Physical Law (Chapter 5: The Distinction of Past and Future)
Six Easy Pieces (Chapter 1: Atoms in Motion)
Feynman Lectures on Computation (Chapter 3: Coding and Information Theory)
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter
⚠️ DISCLAIMER: DISCLAIMER: This is a synthetic narration inspired by Richard Feynman’s teaching style. The voice is not a reproduction of his actual voice. All content is faithfully based on established physics principles. This is an educational project dedicated to making physics accessible and preserving the spirit of scientific curiosity. No impersonation is intended.
🔔 CTA: SUBSCRIBE for more physics explained the way it should be - clear, honest, and mind-blowing.
#RichardFeynman #Physics #Entropy #TimePerception #Thermodynamics #Psychology #SpaceTime #ScienceEducation #FeynmanLectures #PhilosophyOfScience #InformationTheory #Neuroscience #Mindfulness #TheArrowOfTime #ChaosTheory
What Is Light, REALLY - Feynman's Answer Will Melt Your Brain: ruclips.net/video/j6QpS3t_dOI/video.html
...but time is speeding up, our universe is expanding, and loosing mass into black holes, some of which vanish, less local mass, (mass slows time). faster time...
I can't wait for RUclips to give an AI opt out filter
I can’t wait on RUclips to give us a lie opt out filter.
thank you
Indeed. The world is turning into ‘Westworld.’ Everything manufactured.
Time moved very slowly listening to this
LOL!
😆
No that bad 😂 😂
Maybe this explains why a seemingly long car ride the first trip, seems so much shorter on repeat trips.
Strange that because I always feel that the MORE I travel the same route the SHORTER the journey seems. 🤔
@melb5996 Yes you have already seen the route (many times) ...
Ai Richard suddenly turned Australian when gliding through time without friction....!!😂
Yeah, caught that too. He corrected himself pretty quickly, but it was an egregious slip. Lol
We measure time from the time we were born. For a 10 year old, 1 year is 1/10 of his life. For a 70 year old a year is 1/70 of his life.
Might be wrong but would it not go slower then … check out my reply to guy with cowboy hat on
That's interesting.
It's called the law of diminishing experience.
@BrendanSmith-u7c Actually, since 1/10 is significantly larger than 1/70, it feels longer.
You are absolutely correct!
Now, deja vu is also an interesting phenomenon. This is when the event in time is recorded so quickly in the brain that it's logged as a memory at the same time as the event is happening. Hence, the event is experienced as having happened before. Fortunately, this phenomenon lasts but a few seconds or else it would be very confusing,
Life is like a roll of toilet paper, it goes faster and faster as you get near the end.
😂
.......No, this: Why is money just like toilet paper? Answer bellow...
Because it is mostly used for dealing with shit...
But it has to deal with even more crap.
The gas hand on my car moves faster on the last half of the tank than the first half. I swear it's true.
Im sure physics can explain it. Fluid dynamics...@pauldavid335
Variety is the spice of life ..
I noticed this too. It used to take forever for Christmas to come. Now it's like when the month ends, we are one step closer to Christmas. I feel that because I have a concept of time, I understand the speed of it in terms of daily living.
Predictability in the form of routine, day in, day out work, with little energy or time left in the day for fun. You used to go out often not knowing who you'd meet or where you were going to go, or even if you were going home that night. That level of unpredictability, of never knowing what's around the corner, can make it seem like a week lasting a month.
...'they' didn't...you know that...but it seems like you probably did...never too late mate...
Yes exactly! That's why when you travel (not the sit on beach type) time seems to slow down again! ❤
Richard Feynman NEVER said, wrote or published anything of this sort. This WHOLE video is merely AI slop extrapolated from his other works in physics that have nothing to do with the stated topic.
Please subscribe to the channel to watch the latest videos!
@TheFeynmanLensLOL
Exactly why I rated it thumbs-down. Just more AI slop from the increasingly more sloppy RUclips algorithm and its slop-bucket of content.
I wonder. How old are you? Have you collected enough years yet to look back and understand the concept of the message? I wonder. With age comes wisdom. How is that any different from the meaning of the message?
Live long and prosper. I'm sure chat gpt will make you feel better.
Yea, the slop is getting bad
I absolutely H-A-T-E what is being done with AI.
I agree with you ...
When you are young you are counting up
When you are old you are counting down
Wow 🤩 this video was a lot better than I expected. And it perfectly explains why the year when I was focused on learning the new hobbies that I cared about (tennis, swimming, writing a book), changing job and career, visiting new places of interest, watching those interesting sci-fi shows and movies that I missed, and trying to do many things (some of them not easy at all!!) felt like the fullest and longest year of my 20’s. This was why! Subscribed! Applause for this enlightening video 👏👏, thank you for your contribution 😎🤠👍
“Introduce new patterns!”
Keep Jiggling the Atoms my friends! Jiggle Jiggle Jiggle every day and enjoy the ride!
It is quite simple when you think about it. Time is perceived differently based on how long you have lived. When you are 4 years old, a year is 1/4 of your life so it is a very significant part of your life. When you are 40, one year is 1/40th of your life. When you are 100 years old, one year is a very small part of your life. It is all perspective. Time flies when it is a smaller part of your life as a whole. Time did not change, only your perception of time.
Thanx for saving me the time of typing out this exact idea. Simple nonlinear math. Z
DT. ----- Good thinking
When I was a kid, I went to a friend's house that was a long way from my home. It took forever to get there. Now, a hundred meters further is my workingplace. The road is still the same like it used to be and still, I ride a bicycle. It now takes me like 18 minutes which is nothing.
Damn, this video took forever.
For me 1963 to 1973, was like 100 years. I had to raise myself.
1981 to 1991 seem like 50 years, At the same time I learn more the first ten years out of school.
What scared me 2000 to 2025.
I have another much simpler explanaion. When we are young, we get to do many things during a day - let's say you do ten things. When you are much older (as I am!) you get to do one thing during the day. So by the time you have done ten things, ten days have gone by. That's why time seems to fly by when we are old - I'm now 89 so I know this to be true.
...oh i loved that...cheers mate...
Yes but you have almost 90 years of memories that remind you of the depth of time you have exist in. When I was a child I had nothing to do but what interested me and learning new things. Now I'm old and responsibility and schedules seem redundant. But that does not mean my jiggling atoms could cause time compression. This one is BS.
time dont speed up we just get better at avoiding things that slow it down
Time speeds up because you are continuously closing in on the spindle like on a long playing record.
You are doing faster revolutions as the record progresses... The first groove takes much longer to make one revolution on a record than the last one when the needle approaches the end of the recording - It’s entirely perceptual.
When you are a year old a year is 100% of your lifespan. It’s all you know. All you have experienced, in other words it’s the total sum of your existence. When you are 80 years old that entire one year lifespan for the child is only one 80th of your total existence. The year gets smaller and smaller just like the ever tightening grooves on a record…
The revolutions are 33 1/3 per minute no matter where you are on the LP. The timing remains exactly the same - it is the distance the stylus traverses that is different.
Space time is unreal.
The afternoons sure did last a lot longer. Id play out ALL day long. I miss those days.
From my experience of working for my self and working for a company, every time i work for a company i notice a change in the tempo of work they are pushing us to efficiency and efficiency is speed. so the perception of life is speeding up.
I often would notice when setting out on a trip to an unknown destination that the trip going seemed much longer than the return trip. Familiarity speeds up time. Unfamiliarity causes the brain to have to process many new-to-you concepts thus slowing things down. BTW, any unfamiliar project normally takes longer to accomplish than one that has been repeated many times. You simply get better at performing the project and thus can remove steps you originally thought necessary to achieve the same results. The advise given here is correct, mixing things up in your life as you age WILL result in (at least the illusion) of time slowing down.
Yes my uncle told me in a vets home how time goes by fast
Metabolism nuff said!
I have exact questions as mentioned, and it makes sense now. Thank you. Just like playing simcities, in the end some disastets can bring a bit fun😅
This seems great on initial viewing. My question is where did the information that the AI Feynman is saying come from? Was it a recorded lecture, and if so where and when was it recorded, and how can I hear the original?
AI is mostly TTS. Text To Speech.
It's all about learning new things. Personally I relate the passage of time to whichever project I am working on and changing projects and learning new things to me seems to slow life down. Learn a new language; start a new hobby; make a new friend you will find that you will start to measure time from that new beginning.
"Time, in qualudes and red wine...'
Lalalala..❤
i love this! is this is this an accurate representation of feynmans thoughts?
The further I get from the Big Bang of my birth the more I red shift when I think back on it...or something like that.
The most valuable insight of all. Thank you.
Thank you!
Yes it does. I was 40 now I'm 65
Feynman is a wonderful teacher! He explains brilliantly! And he is as clear as glass.
So how does this Ai generated version of him compare to the real person? Remember that with Ai you can have anyone (including yourself) say absolutely anything and those listeners who are not paying attention to detail will believe anything.
@theJAFOreport English is not my native language. Besides, I was listening while doing other things. Perhaps I missed something that would indicate that the text was AI-generated. What did you notice? - and where exactly? Would you conclude that this text has nothing to do with Feynman at all?
Interesting.
Did we just take all this time to agree that variety is the spice of life?
The answer is- Perception. I'll explain.
As we age, life often settles into routines-patterns repeating day after day. When we’re young, everything feels fresh and our minds are constantly recording new experiences. But as we grow older, and our days become more familiar, our brains become like a clever MP3 file: instead of storing every repeated detail, they reference what’s already there. Familiar routines are compressed, and only truly novel moments stand out.
This change shapes our perception of time. When daily life is filled with sameness, our minds perceive less new information, and so the passing days blur together. Months-or even years-can seem to vanish in a blink when nothing stands out to mark their passage. Our sense of time isn’t dictated solely by the clock, but by how many new and meaningful moments we experience.
Ultimately, time moves at the pace of our perceived novelty. When life is rich with new adventures, surprises, or even small shifts, it stretches our perception, making days feel fuller and longer. But when routine takes hold, our perception compresses the flow of time, giving us the uncanny sense of leaping from point A to C, barely aware of B at all.
I think that what you have commented is 'damn skippy' , I mean quite accurate , good work !
Its the decomposition of body.we feel it's fast.
I actually goofed around and created a “perceived time equation.” Essentially it was the ratio of lifetime lived to a unit of time elapsed. For my calculations, I used a lifespan of 77 years. Took a couple of minutes (actual elapsed time).
I look at it like a loaf of bread: In a 12-piece loaf of equal sizes, each slice seems quite large because you are just looking at the next slice to eat. In an 80-piece loaf each slice looks smaller as you think about how much you have already eaten.
Time stays the same. It's you that slows down when you age.
That's why for the animals in the wild.. even though they live much shorter lifespans than us, they feel time much more elongated than our entire lives bcoz each day, each hr, each min can suddenly bring some new challenge, danger which they hv2 negotiate. That time dilation occurs even for insects that live for just a few wks. bcoz in the insect world, the survival gets even more intense and deadly leading2 immense time dilation. And we could even Xtrapolate this2 unicellular orgs that live for just mins and hrs. In the same vein time immensely speeds up planets and stars bcoz whose lifetime stretches for billions of yrs. Take our own earth, going around our sun for zillions of yrs, the same thing over and over again punctuated no doubt with huge events, but these events themselves occur in huge time gaps of thousands of yrs.
That is what i say after you turn 21. It gallops in
Except for demented older people who seem to forget the time.
Is this actually about time… or just about memory getting worse as we age? Those are very different explanations.
(yes a good question !)
...ooh ooh richard i know...ask me ask me...it's a thing called perspective...and yes,for anyone who has only starting to experience it in old age,then boy...that would be terrifying mate...
I thought it wasn’t bad at all, I thought it was interesting insightful, sure it’s just a conglomerate but a good one at that
There is one good question to ask yourself regularly: when was the last time you did something for the first time? Try to do something for the first time.
Balance is the key in the universe, like the ancients Greeks said everything in moderation: keep your mind and body busy!
The AI narrator has no perception of time
Because all electrical circuits, as they decay, speed up & decay faster.
The fate of the universe is not what he thought. He knows better now. THE SOURCE OF Life can and does enliven the physical universe, and more, beyond what we would ever realize from this earthy POV.
Not if you're in prison. Time flies when you're having a good time. Sit in front of an air conditioner during hot summer vs sitting outside in a hot humid day.
How do I know if time passes? I have photos on tin types of me at 18! Time has definitely passed according to my mirror! 😂
Don't delete this video if you really think it's helping someone
It doesn't but you're perception of it does
Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.
Said twice, so it must be true 😀
"No impersonation is intended." Then why imitate his voice?
Fantastic message! Very interesting, but you shouldn't use a professors voice with AI to do it!
No they shouldn't (unless they make it very clear at the beginning)
My thought on Time is, first , that it is a physical phenomenon, composed of particles and waves. And, second, that living entities - and not just humans - create time. The young have more energy available to create time, so they create more of it. The old have less energy, so they create less of it. And, third, that time, once created, becomes Dark Matter.
I don’t think anyone needs physics to understand this. We also have an abundance of photographs and the more often you look at a picture taken in your past, the more it feels like it was ‘only yesterday’. On the other hand if asked about an experience CLOSER to the present and without the imagery to accompany it then we often say “ really? only a couple of years ago “ “ it seems AGES ago.
1 year for a 5 year old is a fifth of its life , a 80 year old it’s an 80th , a blink of the eye by comparison.
Time is constant. It doesn’t speed up. Your internal battery, your energy, slows down.
It’s simple arithmetic: one day is a smaller fraction of your life than the previous day. A year is 1/6 of the life of a 6 year old. A year is 1/60 of the life of a 6 year old.
In 1999, I shipped my 850 Yamaha to Fuji I no airport outside rome. I took the next 9 months experiencing 18 countries ...a Grand Circle of Europe. Talk about unpredictable! It was SO unpredictable that I had seen19 Countries!. Surprise!
To spare you your times watching.
You experience more stuff in your life, you cannot get excited as much as you did when you were a child. Your knowledge is higher, maturity, wisdom, there is no new stuff that is not non familiar or relatable. Life simply becomes more boring and busy and therefore your time is passing faster.
The simple answer before I leave the ai slop... because time is relative.
No 'why' ... it speeds up !
I had such high hopes for this subject/video. Half the way through this, I'm out!
It took me only four minutes. No pun intended.
I wish I would have watched this video years ago
It's Ai slop
Please subscribe to the channel to watch the latest videos!
Yes , a seventy year old has more memory than a thirty year old , an older person has far far more memories ...
Uncomfortable is good! Visit a cemetery . . .
AI = video not watched + channel boycotted
This is AI, Feynman died in 1988
might be something he wrote
RIP
Living in the now
Practical time is a clock
Invented to tell us each second ,each hour ,
And we are told there is 24 hrs to one day .
Then we live in week time
Season time .....time to stop ...time to begin .....times up 😊
You forget that time was invented by humans to have some control of
TIME ????
Understanding Gravity with Richard Feynman: ruclips.net/video/eBmaYNxqCWg/video.html
Slow Down, You're movin]' too fast! Ya Gotta make the Decade last ... Paul Simon.
I already just listened to Feynman about Gravity! I love it! Thanks anyway! ❤
There’s an astonishing amount of nonsense circulating on the internet - especially on RUclips.
I always love listening to this dude but he is wrong on this. Time seems to go fast because we mentally compare time we go through from young age to older age. A year in first grade school seams about the same as 4 years in college at the time we go through it because we have experienced nearly 4 times more life time. The human mind really feels time moving faster at 45 years old and 90. By 90 years old, A person 90 has a day which feels like 24 divided by 18 for a 5-year-old. In other words, a full day and night to a 90 year old, feels to them as only 1.3 hours to a 5 year old.
🤔 sausage.. ?
YEA.. WHERE'S THE AI OPT OUT?!
No. The time speeds up because your brain shrinks.
Maybe ai but the general concept is correct
I would figure that you're becoming less efficient, as you're growing older. If someone was playing a video game, and their computer was delivering 120 frames per second, then decades later it was only providing 20 frames per second. My first inclination wouldn't be to say that the computer was becoming more efficient. If you're in a bathroom and throw a tennis ball, it will bounce off the wall and come back very quickly. If you're in a racquetball room and throw a ball, it takes longer to get back to you, because the room is bigger. When your brain is small, I think it's MORE efficient. It doesn't take long to process any information in it, because it's smaller in size. It's also at peak electro-chemical performance.
When you're older, there's a lot more information, and it takes longer for information to travel. It takes longer to access the more recent memories that you've added. your brain is a lot larger. It's similar to how flies are able to perceive the fluctuations in a fluorescent bulb as definite dark and light cycles. I think your brain becomes LESS efficient, as it gets older, and that's why your perception of time changes. You're not able to react as fast to things. That makes far more sense. Entropy isn't efficiency. When you're young, you might start with a file cabinet of information. As you get older, more file cabinets are added, until you have a room full of file cabinets. That's just my opinion, though.
Here is a laugh; when you are 'over the hill', gravity makes you go faster through life.
If you are 20 years old. Think back a second. Does it not seem like yesterday. So does 40 and 60. 😊 Life is short.
...you didn't read catch -22 either ,rich..? (dunbar's genius)
"Order is the thief of time" - how very profound🕰
I agree that time can be biological presumption
Time does not speed up as you age. You are just more aware that there's not much time left in your life. At 70 years old, I have no future, just past and present. I won't get a loan for more than a year or two, because I might not be around to pay it off.
This is AI nomsense
Ai or no ai there's truth in this story
Jeffrey Epstein died. He was registering at the gates of Heaven to go in. The building he was in had clocks all over the walls. He asked an angel. Why do you have so many clocks. They answered every soul has a clock. Then Epstein asked why are some of the clocks moving faster than other clocks. The angel answered the worst you are on earth the faster your clock turns. Also, the faster it turns the longer it takes you to get into heaven. Epstein looked all over the walls for his clock, then ask them. Why don’t I have a clock on the wall. The angel answer back, your clock isn’t on the wall. It’s on the ceiling. It’s running so fast. We use it as a ceiling fan.
Because you're going downhill? Luge ride...
Really?
What is mans life, it is like a vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes away! James 4:14-KJV Holy Bible! Amos 4:12b, Prepare to meet thy God! Hebrews 9:27- It is appointed unto man(Mankind) once to die and after that the judgment! 69 years old and I can verify that life is brief, but God has placed in our heart eternity (Ecclessiastes 3:10), for we are eternal beings created in the image of God(Genesis 1:26) and will continue after death in heaven or hell(lake of fire-Revelation 20:11-15), determined by what we did with God's Son, Jesus Christ! Have you received Jesus as Saviour? If not,, do it today! Just say a prayer that you are a sinner and need Jesus to save you, He will!
Time does not speed up….you slow down….so,it appears that way. Einstein cover this.