An interesting experiment - or perhaps it is merely an optical illusion - has been circulating around the internet and cultivating an interesting discussion surrounding the nature of time. Try it here.

Therein, one stares at a clock, any old-school big-hand / little-hand / second-hand style will work. Without too much practice, one can observe that the second-hand becomes "sticky". It will literally stop dead on the clock for several seconds -and this phenomenon has caused quite a bit of reaction and speculation. The best and most cognizant of these theories are summarized in the follow-up post, Why Did Time Stop? Further explorations in tachypsychia, a term used by psychologists to describe the subjective experience of time, can be found below.

Physicists at the University of Chicago are researching a new fluid state essentially created by dropping a marble into loosely packed sand. This produces a jet of sand grains that briefly behaves like a special type of dense fluid. Perhaps the craziest part is you can duplicate the experiment at home. (Read the full story).

According to the overview for Haunt, an installation by London’s noted architectural firm Haque, para-psychologists have deduced several “empirical” environmental characteristics of haunted spaces: infrasound (frequencies below the threshold of hearing), fluctuations in humidity, fluctuations in temperature, air movement, electromagnetic fields. Herewith, a haunted space is created and invoked, what Haque dubs an non-visual architecture, by simulating (or creating?) the atmospheric conditions that commonly accompany these experiences.