Why is my line moving so slowly? Should I move to the other line? These are the questions David Andrews hopes to answer in his new book "Why Does the Other Line Always Move Faster?" published by Workman Publishing.

From a simple question about an ubiquitous fact of daily life, Andrews unravels the science of waiting in line through musings on pop culture, the academe, and literature culled from various sources.

The Sunday Times reports that people only notice the other line is moving faster when it actually does. If you're on the fastest line at the grocery checkout you'll be more likely to be occupied with unloading stuff instead of noticing how slow the other line is. Being involved in a process gives us a different sense of the how time flows.

In an article by the Associated Press, Andrews concludes that lines are "essential to the machinery of modern life."

Dabbling in history and politics, Andrews traces the historical origins of lines. He said that this habit came to England at around 1837 from France. Inspired by the cry of the French Revolution for "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," Andrews writes that to "patiently wait one's turn was to hold everyone as equals."

Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle puts it differently when he says, "Patriotism stands in queue." Andrews then relates this to the values of America, where people believe that "all are created equal" and therefore should stand in line.

He also debunks the assumption that the British are masters at standing in line, stating that, "Queues were in fact often tense and politically charged affairs that had to be policed in case of riots" especially during World War II, when people were lining up for rations.

Here we see the political connotations of what seems to be a simple daily habit. Throughout the book, Andrews takes the readers to different places such as Cinderella's Castle in Disneyland, boot camp, the 2011 London riots and the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

In a recent interview, he tells the Associated Press about how this background made him interested in the psychology of waiting in lines. "There were long lines for everything. Milk, eggs, gasoline. You always carried around a bag just in case there was something for sale."

According to the publisher's website, David Andrews grew up in Romania and the U.S., and for a time worked in the U.S. Navy as a linguist.