Philosophy Science Psychology Society Culture Essays Videos Popular About DONATE NEWSLETTER MENU / / Aeon DONATE / NEWSLETTER / SIGN IN / Jo Marchant: In search of now 58 minutes Hills and mountains 8 minutes The Amarna letters 42 minutes Great art explained: Tamara in the green Bugatti 16 minutes Bhutan: the last place 10 minutes When it started to burn 36 minutes A vocabulary for the future: nature 6 minutes The secrets of Hohle Fels cave 11 minutes Into the fire 24 minutes Africa’s cultural landmarks: tombs of Buganda kings 11 minutes Evolution of Manhattan 8 minutes I won’t remain alone 15 minutes EXCLUSIVE Photo by 卡秀 玛. Courtesy Unsplash
Save Share Always with us yet ever elusive – on the knottiness of ‘now’ Save The meaning of ‘now’ might seem rather obvious: it’s the state of awareness you’re experiencing at this very moment, of course. But as the UK science writer Jo Marchant details in this talk at the Royal Institution in London, when you dig into how different disciplines and cultures understand the ‘now’, it gets rather knotty. Borrowing from research for her book In Search of Now (2026), Marchant traverses philosophy, physics, psychology and anthropology, deconstructing the concept to show why the present is so hard to pin down. She then ends on a practical note, weaving the mystery of ‘now’ into an argument for stepping out of clock time and tuning in to your experience.
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