Perception of Time

As the head of a lab at Baylor, Eagleman has spent the past decade tracing the neural and psychological circuitry of the brain's biological clocks. He has had the good fortune to arrive in his field at the same time as fMRI scanners, which allow neuroscientists to observe the brain at work, in the act of thinking. But his best results have often come through more inventive means: video games, optical illusions, physical challenges. Eagleman has a talent for testing the untestable, for taking seemingly sophomoric notions and using them to nail down the slippery stuff of consciousness. "There are an infinite number of boring things to do in science," he told me. "But we live these short life spans. Why not do the thing that's the coolest thing in the world to do?"

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