Kristen Lippincott sits at the center of time -- literally. For the past 10 years, she has been studying time and astronomy at the Royal Observatory, in Greenwich, England. She is also curator of "The Story of Time" at the National Maritime Museum -- an exhibit that explores how societies relate to time.

Where better than Greenwich to tell the story of time? Since 1884, it has been the place where time begins and ends every day. Before then, most towns and cities kept their own time. But the creation of the prime meridian helped set international standards for how time is measured, for when a day begins and ends -- even for how long an hour is. Today, every place on Earth sets its clocks according to its distance from Greenwich.

In an interview with Fast Company, Lippincott, 45, offered a (really) brief history of time -- and the validity (if any) of the hot concept of "Internet time."

Why are we all so fascinated by time?

The clock is a symbol of authority: We all want to "control" time. In many instances, when a revolutionary government has come to power, one of its first acts has been to change the calendar -- to recalibrate time. That's what happened during the French Revolution. The regime didn't like the 12-base, or duodecimal, calendar (inherited from antiquity and early Christianity) , so it tried to impose a decimal calendar. A similar attempt to control the calendar occurred during the Russian Revolution.

But trying to mold time to the whims of people just hasn't worked. The duodecimal calendar has survived since Babylonian times for a reason. There are certain truths about how long it takes the sun and the moon to pass across the sky that you can't escape -- no matter how hard you try to remake the calendar to suit your needs.

Do people really have less time today than they used to have?

How we experience time depends on whether we're engaged in what we're doing, whether we're organized about what we're doing -- even whether we're physically fit. A wise man I know, who worked in government, structured his day so that he always had time to sit with his feet up. He said that if you're always chasing the next problem, you don't see three problems ahead.

Is time an abstraction, or is it real?

Time affects your body, your health, the rhythms of your life. An endocrinologist at the University of Sussex has said, "You can have a 24-hour society, but you can't have a 24-hour body." Whether we like it or not, the melatonin levels in our bodies follow the movement of the sun. Even living with electric light puts stress on our bodies, because it keeps melatonin from responding to light cues in the way that it should. So, in response, people take melatonin supplements. Meanwhile, increases in our cortisol levels get us excited at times when we should be quieting down. It's not healthy.

One of the most interesting papers that I've read recently was about sleeping and waking patterns in humans. Apparently, humans have sleeping and waking patterns that closely resemble those of chipmunks. Therefore, the paper concluded, we should sleep more in the winter -- we should almost hibernate -- and we should be extremely active in the summer. It's a good reminder: We are just a species of animal that lives on a rock that revolves around the sun. No matter how fast the Internet gets, we can't change that reality.