About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution - Hardcover

Davies, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671799649 ISBN 13: 9780671799649

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1995

Synopsis

Examining the consequences of Einstein's relativity theory, an original work explores the mystery of time and considers black holes, time warps, time travel, the existence of God, nature of the universe, and humankind's place in the cosmos. 35,000 first printing. Tour.

About this title

Reviews

Australian physicist and popular science writer Davies (God and the New Physics) takes readers on a mind-expanding journey as he explores the bizarre properties of Einstein's relative, flexible time; modern cosmology's assertion that time originated billions of years ago in the Big Bang; recent efforts to topple that theory; and paradoxes opened up by the prospect of time travel, which, according to Davies, is a scientific possibility. Making technical concepts accessible, Davies surveys attempts by Stephen Hawking, Murray Gell-Mann and others to reconcile Einstein's ideas with quantum physics. Among the time-bending phenomena he investigates are black holes, collapsed stars that may abolish time at their centers; kaons, subatomic particles attuned to the expansion of the universe; and antiworlds, hypothetical neighboring regions of space-time in which time flows backward. The author's speculations on causality, God and eternity make this a rewarding tour de force for nonspecialists. Illustrations.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ever since Einstein overthrew the Newtonian concept of time as a rigid entity, flowing past us in constant, measurable units, physicists like Davies have molded the fantastic, warpable space time into speculative theories about the origin, direction, and end of time. Davies has a popular leg up on his comrades, being the prolific author of a dozen general-interest works, lately the delightfully grim The Last Three Minutes. Though more complicated than the run of the physics genre, Davies' topics still are comprehensible, even if their implications strain our ordinary comprehension of time. To help, Davies introduces an Everyman skeptic, who interrupts the text whenever the matter at hand--for instance, time travel, as when "psychic" photons "know" of events in the past--approaches the threshold of weirdness. Scarcely less challenging are the passel of related questions, such as whether time exists within black holes. With his customary clarity, Davies delineates the questions left open by Einstein's theories and the controversial "cosmological constant" that makes his equations work. Good essays best housed in heavily used physics collections. Gilbert Taylor

Ever since the huge commercial success of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time (LJ 4/15/88), publishers have brought forth dozens of books examining the physical and theoretical foundations of time. With most of these titles continuing to sell well, the market seems inexhaustible. Thus, Davies's intelligent and provocative elucidation of Einstein's relativity theory and its temporal consequences will probably reach a significant audience. The book's greatest strength is that it is written at a beginning-to-intermediate level; readers who start with this book can grow with it, but those who have read other introductions to the subject will also find it rewarding. Still, it offers little that is new. Despite the book's inherent appeal and the popularity of the author's other works (e.g., The Mind of God, LJ 3/15/92), librarians might want to check how well the subject is already covered in their collections before making a purchase. Perhaps the best single treatment in terms of scope, authority, and breadth of appeal is Kip Thorne's Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (LJ 4/15/94).
Gregg Sapp, Univ. of Miami Lib.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0671799649
• ISBN 13: 9780671799649
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 316