Tidsforskning

Tidsforskning, or time research, is an interdisciplinary field that studies the nature, measurement and social organization of time. It brings together philosophy, physics, cognitive science and social sciences to analyze what time is, how it can be measured, and how people and societies experience and structure temporal life. The field covers theoretical questions about the nature of time—whether it is absolute or relational—as well as practical concerns about timekeeping, scheduling and time use.

Subfields include the physics of time and philosophy of time, chronometry and metrology, chronobiology and psychology of temporal perception, and time-use research in sociology and economics. Historical studies of calendars, clocks and timekeeping technologies illuminate how different cultures have organized daily life and industrial work.

Methods vary by subfield: historical analysis of artifacts and records, philosophical argument, experimental studies on perception of duration, precise time measurements, surveys of daily time use, and computational modeling of temporal processes.

Applications of tidsforskning appear in designing time-efficient systems, shaping workplace policies and labor time regulations, evaluating daylight saving time, and informing urban planning and transportation scheduling. By combining quantitative data with qualitative insight, tidsforskning aims to understand how humans experience time and how societies structure it.