★ Two leading professors team up to explore time across eight major fields, from cosmology to everyday perception, offering clear answers to common questions about time.
★ Why do moments of joy feel fleeting while meetings drag on? Why do you seem like two different people in the morning and evening? This book provides scientific yet accessible explanations.
★ A must-read for anyone constantly chasing deadlines, bombarded by fragmented information, or weighed down by age‑related anxiety—after finishing it, your perspective on time will be completely transformed.

What, after all, is time?
It cannot be stopped, nor can it be seen or touched, yet it is felt by everyone at every moment—this is “time.”

This book is a multidisciplinary exploration of the essence of “time,” delving into its core through a wide range of themes: the universe (cosmology), living things (biology), the mind (psychology and neuroscience), the arts (including literature), society (sociology), and life itself (philosophy).

For example:
– At the instant of the Big Bang, was time born?
– Can bees accurately remember that food will appear exactly one hour later?
– Why does happy time seem to fly by, while meeting time feels so long?
– What is the relationship between chronotypes (morningness and eveningness) and concentration and judgment?
– How does the smartphone shatter our sense of the “present”?
– In what ways do haiku and film alter our perception of time?
– What kind of temporal experience lies behind the phrase “we grow old in the blink of an eye”?

Spanning multiple fields, this book tackles the fundamental questions—“What is time?” and “How should we relate to time?”—in a clear, engaging, and thought-provoking manner. By the time you finish, your perspective on time is sure to change.

Kenta Fujisawa
Professor, Faculty of Science and Graduate School of Creative Science, Yamaguchi University; Visiting Professor, Hiroshima University; Adjunct Professor, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan; Former Director, Institute of Chronology, Yamaguchi University; Doctor of Science
Born in 1967 in Ōita City, Ōita Prefecture. After graduating from Maizuru High School in Ōita, he entered the Department of Astronomy, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo. Following completion of the graduate program at the Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, he held positions as a COE Research Fellow at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, a Domestic Special Appointed Researcher at the Communications and Broadcasting Agency, an Assistant at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, an Associate Professor at Yamaguchi University, and an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Yamaguchi University. He currently holds his present position. From 2016 to March 2026, he served as Director of the Institute of Chronology, Yamaguchi University. His research specialties are radio astronomy and astrophysics.

Makoto Ichikawa
Professor, Graduate School of Humanities, Chiba University; President, Japan Society for Time Studies; President, Japan Society for Visual Science; Visiting Professor, Institute of Chronology, Yamaguchi University; Doctor of Literature
Born in 1965 in Kobayashi City, Miyazaki Prefecture. After graduating from Ritsumeikan High School, he entered the Department of Human Relations (now the Department of Human Behavior) at the Faculty of Letters, Osaka City University. Upon completing the doctoral program at the Graduate School of Letters, Osaka City University, he subsequently served as a Special Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, a Research Fellow at York University in Canada, and as a Lecturer and Associate Professor at Yamaguchi University, followed by positions as Associate Professor, Associate Professor with tenure, and Professor at Chiba University. Since 2017, he has held his current post. His area of expertise is experimental psychology.

Chapter 1 Time Comes from the Universe—Stagnant Time, Distorted Time, and Vanishing Time
Chapter 2 The 24 Hours Within Us—37 Trillion Clocks in Constant Motion
Chapter 3 The Brain That Perceives the “Present”—The Malleable Experience of Time
Chapter 4 The Brain That Projects the Future and the Secrets of Our Internal Clocks—“My Morning Self” and “My Nighttime Self” Are Actually Two Different People
Chapter 5 Time in Stories and Art—Time Is Also a Matter of “Fascination”
Chapter 6 The “Form of Time” Transformed by Technology—In a World That Keeps Accelerating, Where Are We Heading?
Chapter 7 The “Perception of Time” Shaped by Culture and Society—That Same “One Hour” Can Be Entirely Different Depending on the Country and the Language
Chapter 8 Life and Time—The Moments I Have Lived Through