The order, duration and change through which events unfold. Clocks measure one aspect of it, but do not exhaust what time is.
The Library · Ideas to live with
There are many
ways into time.
Follow the five-part journey in order, or begin with the question that draws you in.
Browse all readingsA place to begin
What is time?
“What then is time? If no one asks me, I know. If I wish to explain it, I know not.”Saint Augustine, Confessions
How time is experienced, interpreted and organised in life. It is why the same hour can feel different across people, activities and social worlds.
Meet time itself
Begin with the foundations: what time is, why it is more than the clock, and how different kinds of time gather in the same world.
Meet the times within you
Explore how time is carried by the body, made by the mind, and felt across the unfolding of a human life.
Meet the times between us
See how time takes shape through language, culture, relationships and place, and how our rhythms become shared.
Meet the times that organise us
Trace how history, institutions, markets and power shape pace, waiting, value and the demands of modern life.
Meet the times beyond us
Look beyond the human present to the living rhythms, long consequences and possible worlds in which our lives are held.
Enter the House
Enter the House of Time.
We're excited to welcome you back to the part of yourself that has been there all along.