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ancient philosophers were far from alone in their musings about time. Playwright Tennessee Williams wrote in 1944 that time is the longest distance between two places. And the years since have proved him right. Fast travel, instant communications and express deliveries between opposite ends of the world mean, more than ever, that time is not only relative but also an illusion. But time is also money, or so the axiom goes. Certainly both time and money are precious, exist in limited quantities and can be intimately intertwined. Have you ever longed to get away but lacked the money or time to take your ideal vacation? In our travels we have noticed that airports, surprisingly, are a favorite location for high-end watch displays. It is as if travelers commonly must decide before imminent takeoff whether to pop into the newsstand to grab some gum and a copy of Scientific American or stop by the adjoining jewelry counter for a $10,000 Rolex. Who chooses the latter? We can’t, unfortunately, although we do like to window shop. Next time you do, pay special attention to the watch displays and see if you notice anything unusual. You may see how advertisers exploit the intersection of time and illusion to sell their products.

DENNIS ROGERS is an unassuming guy. He’s on the short side. And though muscular, he doesn’t come across as the kind of towering Venice Beach, musclebound Arnold that you might expect from someone billed as the World’s Strongest Man. Rather he has the kind of avuncular intensity you nd in a great automobile mechanic—a mechanic who happens to be able to lift an engine with one hand while using the ngertips of the other hand to wrench the spark plugs out. Like it’s nothing. Rogers, who has been known to keep two U.S. Air Force ghter planes from blasting away in opposite directions by holding them back with his bare hands, performed at the most recent Gathering for Gardner—a conference that celebrates the interests of one of Scienti c American’s greatest columnists, the late mathemagician Martin Gardner. We asked Rogers about the source of his incredible powers after the show, and we were surprised to learn that he did not know. Bill Amonette of the University of Houston– Clear Lake found that Rogers could recruit an abnormally high number of muscle bers. But was this ability because of a freak genetic mutation? Another possibility, which Rogers thinks is more likely, is the way he processes pain when he strains those muscles. What if, instead of superpowered muscles, Rogers has a normal—though extremely well exercised—body, and his abilities arise because he can withstand more pain than most mere mortals? He claims that he does feel pain and is actuNo Brain, No Pain

Most of us really don't understand how mirrors work, which makes for some fun reflective deception

Balls that roll uphill, bathtubs that stretch and shrink, freaky faces and throbbing hearts. Welcome to the year's best visual tricks

Magicians dazzle us by exploiting loopholes in the brain's circuitry for perceiving the world and paying attention

What the leaning tower and related illusions reveal about how your brain constructs 3-D images

The brain's resources are limited. By focusing on angles, curves and line endings, your visual neurons can cut corners

VISuaL perceptIon begins with our retinas locating the edges of objects in the world. Downstream neural mechanisms analyze those borders and use that information to fill in the insides of objects, constructing our perception of surfaces. What happens when those borders—the fundamental fabric of our visual reality—are tweaked? Our internal representation of objects fails, and our brain’s ability to accurately represent reality no longer functions. Seemingly small mistakes lead to the very distorted perceptions of an illusory world. M