Four figures dance in a ring to music played by winged, bearded Time, while Apollo's chariot crosses the sky above — Nicolas Poussin, *A Dance to the Music of Time*, c. 1634–36. Wallace Collection, London. The dancers circle to the lyre of Father Time; at their feet one child blows bubbles and another holds an hourglass.Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

An illustrated guide

Does time flow?

Common sense says the present moves, sweeping the future into the past. David Deutsch argues that this picture cannot survive a single careful question: moving at what rate, measured against what?

This site starts from the chapter on time in Deutsch's The Fabric of Reality (1997). The book's diagrams of a moving present had to sit still on the page. Here they move, so you can watch the common-sense picture run and see exactly where it breaks.

From there, each major view of time gets its own page: what it claims, what drives it, and where it parts company with Deutsch. Each has an interactive figure of its own, from Zeno's frozen arrow to Smolin's evolving laws.

Deutsch's view The moving present, why it fails, and time as a family of snapshots, in eight interactive figures. The Greeks Heraclitus's river, Parmenides' sphere, Zeno's arrow, Plato's moving image and Aristotle's number of change. Modern and contemporary From Bergson, Einstein and McTaggart to Barbour, Smolin, Rovelli, Carroll and the philosophers of physics. Compare all views Every thinker in one table: does time flow, what is real, and where each meets and parts from Deutsch. Reading Books and audiobooks to explore next, with links for UK and US readers.