Side project · Website · Live
The Speed of Years.
The older I get, the faster life seems to move.
So I started researching. People have been trying to put numbers on this since 1877, and the math turns out to be surprisingly simple. I was just as curious about the other side: if the years keep speeding up, how do you avoid looking back and feeling like you missed them? This page is what came out of it. Enter your age, the age you expect to live to and your earliest memory, and it shows how much of your life you've already felt, and what research says makes the years ahead feel longer.
- Status
- Live since 2026
- Built with
- HTML, CSS, JavaScript. No build step
- Hosting
- GitHub Pages
- Privacy
- Everything is calculated in your browser
The idea
At 3, a year is a third of your life. At 30, it's a thirtieth. That might be why the years seem to speed up.
The philosopher Paul Janet suggested in 1877 that each year feels shorter the more life you've already lived. The site uses Ronald Lemlich's milder 1975 version, where felt time shrinks with the square root of age, counted from your earliest memory:
felt so far = (√age − √m) / (√lifespan − √m) m = age of your earliest memory
It's a thought experiment, not a measurement. The "How it works" panel on the site covers what the evidence does and doesn't support, including Janet's stronger version and the main counterarguments.
What you see
- Your life in weeks, one row per year. Switch between how it feels, with early years drawn tall, and the calendar, where every year is the same size.
- Your life playing out, where each year lasts as long as it feels. Childhood takes seconds; later decades flash past.
- Why life seems to speed up, and what research suggests makes years feel longer when you look back.
Credits
Inspired by Tim Urban's Your Life in Weeks and Maximilian Kiener's Why Time Flies. Full sources are listed on the site.