Time: The Familiar Stranger

Discusses the origins of the universe, the history of clocks, human perception of time, dreams and reality, memory, aging, and death

Fraser's engaging book presents a discussion of clocks, calendars used throughout history, and time in various cultures. The unifying theme is the difference between pyschological time and time in modern physics. Science rejects the concept of time as always having the dimensions of past, present, and futureEinstein suggested objects exist in four-dimensional "spacetime." The author's skill prevents the reader from becoming lost in advanced physics, but on occasion he slips: the solution to Zeno's paradoxes does not work; and Marx did not say time was entirely a social convention. But this is a delightful book. David Gordon, Bowling Green State Univ., Ohio
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.