The Janus Point: A New Theory of Time (First Edition)

Barbour, Julian

ISBN 10: 0465095461 / ISBN 13: 9780465095469

Published by Basic Books, New York, 2020

About this Item

New York: Basic Books, 2020. First edition. First printing (stated). Hardcover. Quarter black cloth over purple paper-covered boards, with white spine lettering. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Publisher's original price of $32.00 on front jacket flap. Comes with archival-quality mylar dust jacket protector. A tight, clean copy, with red endpapers. Octavo, 384 pages, with index. A cosmological study proposing a new theory of time grounded in the dynamics of the universe and entropy. Julian Barbour is a British physicist known for foundational work on the nature of time and quantum gravity. This is one of Barbour's major contributions to contemporary physics.

Seller Inventory # Nonfiction-Sale-Science

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Janus Point: A New Theory of Time (First Edition)
• Publisher: Basic Books, New York
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465095461
• ISBN 13: 9780465095469
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Cosmology

About this title

Synopsis

In a universe filled by chaos and disorder, one physicist makes the radical argument that the growth of order drives the passage of time -- and shapes the destiny of the universe.

 

Time is among the universe's greatest mysteries. Why, when most laws of physics allow for it to flow forward and backward, does it only go forward? Physicists have long appealed to the second law of thermodynamics, held to predict the increase of disorder in the universe, to explain this. In The Janus Point, physicist Julian Barbour argues that the second law has been misapplied and that the growth of order determines how we experience time. In his view, the big bang becomes the "Janus point," a moment of minimal order from which time could flow, and order increase, in two directions. The Janus Point has remarkable implications: while most physicists predict that the universe will become mired in disorder, Barbour sees the possibility that order -- the stuff of life -- can grow without bound.

 

A major new work of physics, The Janus Point will transform our understanding of the nature of existence.

About the Author

Julian Barbour is the author of the highly regarded The Discovery of Dynamics and the bestseller The End of Time. He received his PhD in physics from the University of Cologne in 1968. He is a past visiting professor of physics at the University of Oxford and lives on the edge of the scenic Cotswolds, UK.