A Natural History of Time - Hardcover

Richet, Pascal

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226712877 ISBN 13: 9780226712871

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2007

Synopsis

The quest to pinpoint the age of the Earth is nearly as old as humanity itself. For most of history, people trusted mythology or religion to provide the answer, even though nature abounds with clues to the past of the Earth and the stars. In A Natural History of Time, geophysicist Pascal Richet tells the fascinating story of how scientists and philosophers examined those clues and from them built a chronological scale that has made it possible to reconstruct the history of nature itself.

Richet begins his story with mythological traditions, which were heavily influenced by the seasons and almost uniformly viewed time cyclically. The linear history promulgated by Judaism, with its story of creation, was an exception, and it was that tradition that drove early Christian attempts to date the Earth. For instance, in 169 CE, the bishop of Antioch, for instance declared that the world had been in existence for “5,698 years and the odd months and days.”

Until the mid-eighteenth century, such natural timescales derived from biblical chronologies prevailed, but, Richet demonstrates, with the Scientific Revolution geological and astronomical evidence for much longer timescales began to accumulate. Fossils and the developing science of geology provided compelling evidence for periods of millions and millions of years—a scale that even scientists had difficulty grasping. By the end of the twentieth century, new tools such as radiometric dating had demonstrated that the solar system is four and a half billion years old, and the universe itself about twice that, though controversial questions remain.

The quest for time is a story of ingenuity and determination, and like a geologist, Pascal Richet carefully peels back the strata of that history, giving us a chance to marvel at each layer and truly appreciate how far our knowledge—and our planet—have come.

About this title

About the Author

Pascal Richet is professor of geophysics at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris. He is the author of, among other books, The Physical Basis of Thermodynamics. John Venerella is the translator of A Naturalist’s Guide to the Tropics, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews

For millennia humans relied on mythical or biblical accounts to conjure up a birth date for our planet. Astronomer Edmund Halley used the amount of salt in the oceans as his calendar. The great Newton ventured at writing a chronology that took most of the stories of Greek kings and heroes at face value. But as French geophysicist Richet tells readers, people didn't get serious about ascertaining the age of the Earth until the Enlightenment, when researchers tried to figure the amount of heat lost by the Earth to reckon backward to its molten youth. But a firm date—4.5 billion years—couldn't be established until the discovery of radioactive elements to date everything from textiles to stones. Richet writes in a meandering European style as he draws in figures from other fields (who would have guessed that Voltaire was Newton's principal advocate on the Continent?) to fill out his story. His writing occasionally plods along, and attempts at humor sometimes fall flat, although these may be just hazards of translation. Geology and natural science buffs will discover a rich, baroquely embellished birthday cake to dig into and enjoy. 12 half-tones, 27 line drawings.
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Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226712877
• ISBN 13: 9780226712871
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400