In Search of Time: The Science of a Curious Dimension

by Dan Falk

Time surrounds us. It defines our experience of the world; it echoes through our every waking hour. Time is the very foundation of conscious experience. Yet as familiar as it is, time is also deeply mysterious. We cannot see, hear, smell, taste, or touch it. Yet we do feel it—or at least we think we feel it. No wonder poets, writers, philosophers, and scientists have grappled with time for centuries. In his latest book, award-winning science writer Dan Falk chronicles the story of how humans have come to understand time over the millennia, and by drawing from the latest research in physics, psychology, and other fields, Falk shows how that understanding continues to evolve. In Search of Time begins with our earliest ancestors’ perception of time and the discoveries that led—with much effort—to the Gregorian calendar, atomic clocks, and “leap seconds.” Falk examines the workings of memory, the brain’s remarkable “bridge across time,” and asks whether humans are unique in their ability to recall the past and imagine the future. He explores the possibility of time travel, and the paradoxes it seems to entail. Falk looks at the quest to comprehend the beginning of time and how time—and the universe—may end. Finally, he examines the puzzle of time’s “flow,” and the remarkable possibility that the passage of time may be an illusion. Entertaining, illuminating, and ultimately thought provoking, In Search of Time reveals what some of our most insightful thinkers have had to say about time, from Aristotle to Kant, from Newton to Einstein, and continuing with the brightest minds of today.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Physics, History, Popular Science, Time Travel

329 pages, Hardcover

First published October 21, 2008

About the author

I'm a science journalist, author, and broadcaster based in Toronto, Canada. I've written three books so far: My first book, Universe on a T-Shirt, looked at the quest for a unified theory of physics, while In Search of Time explored the physics and philosophy of time.

I'm very excited about my new book, The Science of Shakespeare, to be published this April! This time I turn the clock back 400 years, investigating the period we now call the Scientific Revolution, and looking at the interplay between science and literature in the age of Shakespeare.

The book is published in the U.S. by St. Martin's Press and in Canada by Goose Lane.

Visit my website at www.danfalk.ca -- I'd love to hear what you think of my books!

Reviews

[Etienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5/5. In Search of Time is a really interesting book about... yes time! From the basic day to day use of time, clocks, days/weeks/months, time zones, etc. to deeper and complex thoughts on time in a quantum physics aspect. It also goes a bit in philosophy, psychology, neurology, astronomy and more. It cover kind of every possible aspect of time from various field of research. Complex at time, a bit more on the surface others, it does always find a way to explain its point clearly and in an accessible way. You will learn, it will make you think and, I hope, you'll enjoy your reading time.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Falk is a science journalist. The subtitle of In Search of Time is Journeys Along a Curious Dimension. These two facts lead to an obvious conclusion: This book is mostly about physics. No surprises there. However, the first few chapters a pretty light on science. Falk talks about time from an anthropological and historical stand point. He discusses how different societies in history interpreted time and how they measured it. He talks about the first calendars and the first clocks. This is all quite good fun - as a physicist it can sometimes be hard for me to read popular physics because I'm too close to the subject. I have no such problems reading history.

Soon enough, though, the hard science begins. Falk takes a predictable route from Newton to Einstein and beyond to interesting yet untestable ideas like string theory. He interviews lots of current physicists about their ideas about time and asks them what they think Einstein thought. Often he stops to describe the pretty little quaint English villages they live in (Falk clearly likes the South of England very much and I suspect he could write a successful book about it). Repeatedly he returns to the same question: What is time?

Unfortunately, like many others, he is unable to come to a solid answer. Time passes so that processes can occur, or it is what we measure change by, or it is a discrete series of moments that all constantly exist and our perception of its flow is an illusion. Or something else. He argues that time is such an ingrained concept for us that we may never be able to truly, satisfactorily define it.

Maybe that's fair but his final conclusion, which presents Einstein apparently changing his mind* about the nature of time feels like a cop out. It reads like Falk is saying, "Oh, I don't bloody know, but Einstein didn't either, so there." Sure, it's a hard question to ask, and I certainly don't know the answer either, but then, why write an entire book dwelling on a question you never really answer? Why not shift the focus slightly so a more interesting, more satisfying conclusion can be drawn? While I enjoyed parts of the book, I couldn't help finding this focus to be an odd choice.

[Bahiji AKoury · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the way this book talks about time in ancient civilizations

[Darcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have long been fascinated by time. Both in determining just what it is and how to manipulate it. The idea of being able to travel back and see a Dinosaur or any number of historical events or personages has been a lifetime fantasy. Likewise, how time can pass at different rates based on perception continues to amaze me. In my heart of hearts I really do not believe physical travel into the past is possible, however, even being able to open a window to view bygone eras would be astounding. However, trying to get a grip on the nebulous concept of just what time is has confounded thinkers in all disciplines for millennia. These different ideas are what the author, Dan Falk, pursues in this captivating book.

We all understand that time passes faster when we are having fun and that we are living in a society that is ruled by the clock. But was it always this way? Before time pieces time was governed more by seasons or events and was more malleable. Some cultures today continue to have a more fluid relationship with the passing of seconds than the West does. Authors dating back to the invention of the first clock differed on the importance of accurate time keeping. Some heralded it as a boon, others as a bust. These interpretations are examined in an easy to understand way as are attempts to understand just what time actually is. Was time created at the beginning of the universe? Is time motion? Is it linear? How did Einstein's understanding of time impact society? And, of course, is time travel possible? (More exactly, will it be possible to control time's passage backwards and forwards at will?) All of these questions are discussed in this informative and thought provoking book.

I was unsure at first how looking at time from a sociological point of view belonged in a text like this, however Falk is able to demonstrate how attitudes and understanding of what time is are just as important as the time-space relationship. Yes, I still have a lot of unanswered questions, as do many philosophers and scientists. But I at least have a better understanding of what questions to ask. Certainly thought provoking, this easy to understand book is a wonderful foray into this curious dimension. If you can only find the time to read it...

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Falk gets the pendulum swinging by taking his reader's back to prehistoric times, and his best guesses (based upon anthropology and archaeology) at how early humans gazed into the cosmos, noticed the circular patterns of stars, moon and the sun, and created a notion of time that was vaguely agreed upon (with certain cultures throughout history providing an intriguing spin on the logical progression from then to now and onto later). Despite the variety of interpretations, the general consensus is that time can be measured and how machines, including pendulum-based clocks, tell us everything we need to know about past, present and future. This pendulum reaches its equilibrium position when it gets to Newton's mathematically absolute sense of time, but soon scatters into an array of possible trajectories as Leibniz, Einstein and quantum theorists begin to question and introduce uncertainty into the same cosmos our ancient ancestors looked to at the beginning of "time." Many points along the narrative path reveal some hidden truths about what some people feel about the unknowable concept, such as Dickens' Christmas Carol being a precursor to the sci-fi trope of time travel, or how Julius Caesar (as well as his calendar) is very much alive as anyone reading this sentence. Falk understandingly relies on physicists, his people, to tell the latter half of his story, and could have looked at what poets and other storytellers had to say: lots of Brian Greene, but no mention of Graham whose End of the Affair has a line of dialogue that sums up much of what Falk carefully researched in the twelve chapters of his book.

[Jeffrey Ciesla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great overview of time and space. Includes perspectives from many disciplines such as philosophy & physics, and everything in between. Easy to read, and the author takes what could be a dry book and makes it entertaining.

I need to check out his previous book, Universe on a T-Shirt, and make my way through some of the reference books he cites.

[Ebtihal Salman · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب ممتع. مجموعة مقالات علمية تبحث في الزمن، في تاريخ رصدنا للوقت وتطور ادواتنا ومفهومنا للزمن، في محاولات الفيزيائيين الوصول لفهم ماهية الزمن ، في معنى التنقل في الزمن ضمن افكار أخرى.

هناك فصول قليلة تذهب في تفاصيل النظريات الفيزيائية لكن الكتاب بشكل عام بسيط الاسلوب وسلس القراءة.
الترجمة ممتازة واضافات المترجمة في الهوامش اضافت مزيد من التوضيح للنص.

[اخضر اخضر · Rating 4 out of 5]

في اعتقادي ان هذا الكتاب يحتاج اكثر من قراءة وكذلك مراجعة بعض المصادر الواردة فيه للحصول على فكرة واسعة وعميقة
عندما قرأت كتاب أدركت انه ليس من قليل وصل العرب لما هم فيه الآن
لأننا فعلا جاهلون ما هو الزمن وما قيمته وتأثيره

[Brendan · Rating 2 out of 5]

He interviewd Barbour, Deutsch, and Penrose for this , but had no real idea what to ask them. ( Also you can probably skip the first five chapters )

[Bean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. Didn't go as in depth as I would have wanted to go, but he provided plenty of sources for further reading.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's too bad that the author and I are -- so far as I know -- completely unrelated. I'm sure his research would make for fascinating conversation fodder at Thanksgivings. In any case, and aside from a few redundant chapters at the end that retread material covered on the opening pages, Falk's book is an ideal bedtime companion that affords a fine evening read-aloud. In Search Of… takes on diverse aspects of how we understand, perceive, observe, and describe time -- everything from the technological and sociological history of calendars and clocks to the function of memory and sensory perception to relativity and new theoretical forays into quantum gravitation. The author's witty, so much so that I often enjoyed reading the author's observations aloud. Completing a visit to the Master Clock (actually a timepiece aggregator kept by the US Naval Observatory) Falk writes, "I glance at my watch. One of us is off by fifty seconds. I'm guessing it's me." I'm sure I quoted this when I first came across it at page 56. My bedtime companion did not complain.

I came upon this delightful book during a quarterly library purge, allowing me to read it at leisure. The only downside of this, at least for me, is that ownership privileges come free of the artificial deadlines that help drive timely write-ups. However, the upside is that I can bookmark like crazy books I enjoy without fear. I now propose to walk down the dogears to follow the thoughts that Dan Falk triggered.

Here's a bit from page 74:

Today, a teacher in Maine, a lawyer in Baltimore, and a shop clerk in Florida all start their working day at the same time, and, if they happen to be fans of Conan O'Brien or David Letterman, they'll switch their TVs on at exactly the same time in the evening. This kind of synchrony, [historian Michael] O'Malley notes, is felt even more acutely during major television events such as the Super Bowl, when, during the commercial breaks -- as the utility companies are well aware -- a million toilets are likely to flush at the same time.

Shared experiences are a side effect of modern time standardization that we take for granted if we think about them at all, but the strategic implications of this phenomenon are huge. For starters, there's the invisible way that chronocracy amplifies mass media imposition of a monoculture on otherwise diverse groups of people. It's simultaneously unifying and stultifying. Then there's the vulnerability that comes with precision-based, predictable biorhythms: The effective surprise of Israel's pre-emptive strike on Egypt's air force at the onset of the Six Day War was made possible in large part due to the drowsy lag inherent during swapping night and morning shifts. This also translates to music's ability to impose senses of community and continuity: whether it be a congregation joining in an uplifting hymn, a stadium of soccer fans singing "You'll Never Walk Alone," or a global YouTube jam. The shared rhythms of standard time are a powerful unifying force.

There are two basic kinds of time: block time, in which all moments are frozen pixels locked to a real or imagined physical place in space (think Vichy France, the siege of the Alamo, or that point in 2094 when John Connor is sent back in time to defeat the Terminator); and linear time (the continuum of before-now-after in which everything has precursors and consequences). Block time is definitive, static, and possibly deterministic; linear time is relative, dynamic, and unpredictable. Historians and time travelers explore block time, but we live in linear time. Each are respectively understandable as the difference between me reading this on my laptop at 8:37 the morning of August 21, 2015 and doing so "in the here and now" (which could be anywhere or anywhen).

Time seems exasperatingly unknowable. Does linear time even exist? In a clockless limbo where nothing changes, even metabolically, no time counts within our perception. Thus frozen, no time passes, though the world pass us by. Far from treating this as a philosophical or semantic problem, Falk relates contemporary biologists', evolutionary scientists', and neuroscientists' latest theories on how and why our brains perceive time, but doesn't reach a conclusion. We can memorize facts we store as data. We retain episodic memories (miniature multisensory narratives) and can recombine both to imagine alternate realities. Our brains are sufficiently malleable as to render each form of memory unreliable, a real problem for a justice system that relies heavily on the indeterminate credibility of eyewitness testimony. As brilliantly illustrated in one of my all-time favorite movies, the ILM-animated Twice Upon a Time, a person with a watch can pretend to know the time, but a person with any other number of watches cannot. Because we cannot exist outside ourselves, time presents as much a phenomenological problem as reality.

On page 165, the author describes a relativistic experiment involving a passenger on a transparent rail car moving near the speed of light and an observer on a neighboring platform (that would presumably be annihilated by the fusion-strength pressure wave as the train passes but for the fact that this is a thought experiment). The passenger stands in the middle of the car and triggers a switch that causes strobe lights in the far walls of the train to flash simultaneously. The point here being that because the speed of light is constant but the train moving, the trigger is simultaneous for the passenger, but not for the observer, who rather sees the front of the train receding from the trigger signal with sufficient rapidity as to engender a delay between the two strobes. In other words, in our universe (a block-time, or more specifically, block spacetime entity) simultaneity is a relative event, not a fixed one. What is "now" for me, may in fact be "later" for you.

Observations of deep space supernovae and like phenomena indicate that our universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, a stretching of the fabric of spacetime that outpaces the speed light can travel the newly-opened distances. Consistent with much of our extrasensory intelligence, this idea runs counter to expectations. Were gravity the primary force in play, we would expect things to be slowing down and ultimately reversing. Dark energy is the prevailing theory brought forward to explain this defiance of gravitational friction, and popular predictions leave the universe's interconnected cobweb of galactic clusters gradually pulled apart and left to drift ever further away from one another, doomed to become isolated islands of cooling star systems each ultimately guttering into nothingness.

So far, so depressing. (Don't get me wrong, the alternative of seeing universal matter and energy accelerating into an all-annihilating, implosive crunch is depressing too, but at least that depression is offset somewhat by exciting pyrotechnics.) What I don't understand with the expansionist scenario is how strong a force dark energy is as against that of gravity, electromagnetism, or the various nuclear forces. I mean, where is the natural limit to its negative pressure? Sure, it works at the macroscopic scales of galactic clusters, but what about as between galaxies? Were they not otherwise on a collision course, should the Milky Way bid adieu to Andromeda? What about intra-galactic effects? If spacetime is stretching ever outward, might it not pull our solar system apart? Should planets always retain their cohesion? And granted that the space between my ears lacks integrity, why isn't the classroom I'm sitting in elongating? I'm certain these are outrageously stupid questions, but I'd dearly love to understand why.

I noted in the onset of this review that the author begins to repeat himself toward the end of the book. This comes across less as a cyclical structural thing so much as a manifestation of Falk's psychological dependency on getting some expert to acknowledge the concept of linear time as objective reality. For some reason, it is important to Falk that Caesar, Shakespeare, and Hitler each lived in distinct times and places, but do not live now, that our lives and theirs could never truly intersect. Physicists such as David Deutsch, Roger Penrose, and Julian Barbour dismiss the issue as trivial (Falk quotes Deutsch at page 288 as saying, "These aren't mysteries, they're just quirks of language.") If it's any consolation to my namesake, I think Scott McCloud offered the best explanation for our perception of linear time in defining comics' sequential function through closure. Our brains have to cobble together reality as best as possible from imperfect sense organs. Presented with a wide variety of disparate inputs, our brains fill in the gaps and generate a whole picture. Hence, time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana, and while we remain captives of a particular range of spacetime, we cannot, with apologies to Kurt Vonnegut, become unstuck in time.

[John Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Humans live in time—aware of the present, able to recall the past and anticipate the future—and may always have done so. Dan Falk surveys how we’ve dealt with it (our calendars took centuries to refine; our clocks can now measure majestically tiny fractions of seconds), how we use it (in navigation, for instance), what we’ve figured out about it (it seems to have begun about 13.7 billion years ago) and what we still don’t know (whether it really exists, which many physicists doubt), how different cultures think and talk about it.

Falk says nothing about the art and science of history as a way of understanding human time; to me, this is a major omission. On the other hand, I don’t recall that anything else I’ve read about time discusses it either. And there are other, more minor omissions. But in a way, it’s a virtue that he leaves some things out. His text, which is just short of 300 pages (not counting back matter), will save you time while telling you almost everything that’s important. In Search of Time may be the best single source on the subject.

[Allan Olley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a fascinating look at the concept, history and science of time. The book often focuses on the physics of time as the roll it plays in things like Einstein's theory of relativity, but includes discussion of linguistic, anthropological, psychological and neurological aspects of time also. The history of time in human civilization is also a major theme stretching from prehistoric sites like Stonehenge to the latest atomic clocks. These concrete discussion serve as an informative backdrop to the more abstract theoretical and philosophical discussions of time later in the book.

Falk's style is easy to understand and approachable, but he also tackles some more technical aspects. The book is not dumbed down. Occasionally the subject goes beyond Falk's expressed level of competence or understanding, but Falk admits such limits and compensates for his inadequacies by reference to what expert opinion is available to speak to it.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, concise, very interesting overview of more-or-less current thought on the nature of time. The book is a bit dated- it came out in 2008, when the Large Hadron Collider had yet to be up and running and the Cramer reverse-causality experiment hadn't yet occurred. (or HAD it? Read the book!) Nevertheless, in 10 years I suppose not much can be added to what Einstein, Hawking, Penrose et al. believed about time, and this volume goes over many opinions from many of those influential scientists. It's not perfect- Falk spends a lot of time going over the history of timekeeping, which is interesting but doesn't really tell me a whole lot about what time IS. But all in all the book is a good introduction to the physics and philosophy of time, without the complexity of a Stephen Hawking tome.

[مشاعل مجرشي · Rating 5 out of 5]

‏ ❞اعتراف علماء الفيزياء بأن تعريف «ما هو الزمن؟» أصعب بكثير من أن يشرحوا لنا ما لا يمثله، ينبئنا بالكثير!
الزمن ليس مجرد تدفق ثابت، الزمن ليس مجرد تزايد في عدم الترتيب، الزمن ليس انعكاسًا تمدد الكون... بعد نقاشات مطولة مع العديد من العلماء، بدا لي أن الاستنتاج الوحيد الذي لا يختلف حوله أحد هو:
الزمن ليس ما نعتقده! حتى المظاهر الراسخة للزمن، تراوغنا. ❝

الكتاب كما صُنف في الدار: دراسة.
من العيار الثقيل، تسبب لي بشد عضلي في عضلات دماغي مرات عدة 🧠 كُتب بطريقة دقيقة ومحكمة، تفصيلي ويجمع شتات أطرافه ببراعة، وموضوعي ومتعدد في طرحه لموضوع الزمن من جوانب عدة.. باختصار كتاب علمي (فيزيائي) خالص وماتع جدًا جدًا


العجيب أن المؤلف صحفي يكتب في مجال العلوم، أي أنه غير متخصص، حقيقة أهنئه على هذا المُخرج.


👋🏻 #في_البحث_عن_الزمن

[Field Moon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought-provoking

It’s thought-provoking, which is the utmost quality of a good book. Science is well explained that laymen can understand. I am specially attracted to the 4-dimensional space, which makes possible the dead live on somewhere in the space rather than disappear. That explains why we miss people who passed away and probably they still exist despite we have no way to communicate with them.

[Brock Birkner · Rating 5 out of 5]

My friend gave me this book and recommended I read it so we could talk about it.
The issue is that I'm a bad friend because she gave me this book eight years ago.

It's an incredible book, man how time flies.

[Laianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful exploration of all things time. My favorite part was the beginning section on historical timekeeping and calendars, but the entire book was fun and informative! Would recommend to anyone interested in a (mostly) non-physics perspective.

[Mina · Rating 4 out of 5]

بداية جيدة لقراءات العام الجديد
فكرته الاساسية متعلقة بمفهوم الزمن ويتناولها من بعد فيزيائي و فلسفي و اهم شئ في الكتاب تناول الاسئلة المحيرة عن الزمن و نظرة البشر علي مر العصور للزمن و تطوره في وعي الانسان وبالرغم من كل ما وصل اليه الجنس البشري من تقدم لا يوجد تعريف واضح متفق عليه للزمن
كتاب رائع

[Dr. Lehman L Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting

The book brings the slippery business of time out for a brief look. I found the discussions and examples interesting.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting! The last chapter was definitely my favorite.

[Steven Felicelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a tedious recap of time out of mind, this one gets interesting in the second half.

[Bill Abrams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not academic but well written and entertaining. A mix of anthropology, physics, history, and a little philosophy.

[Andrew Pan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have more to think next time when asking What 'time' is it?

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Nic · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started this book in April 2020, finished it today. In Search Of Time may be the answer to why it took me so long to read.

[Gary Schroeder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dan Falk’s “In Search of Time” is a thoroughly approachable and enjoyable review of what physicists and philosophers are able to tell us about the nature of time, an aspect of life that we take for granted as obvious and understood...until you start to look at it closely. Falk covers every aspect of time from ancient attempts to build astronomical clocks and the development of mechanical time keepers to Einstein’s theories of relativity that shattered the illusion of any absolute standard for “now” and the fallout it left philosophers to cope with.

The book’s cover boldly declares “Falk’s book is what Hawking’s Brief History of Time should have been.” No disrespect to Dr. Hawking but I think this is probably a fitting pronouncement. Discussions of time and what it is and how it seems to “flow” are reviewed through a brief walk through history, a few easy-to-understand physics lessons, some introductory philosophy and interviews with contemporary physicists. Falk has written this book for everyone; science-phobes should have no fear and science-attentives will not be insulted.

The journey through ideas surrounding our ideas about time are somewhat mind-bending. It’s difficult to imagine that something we all speak about and refer to without confusion leads to complete discombobulation when one begins to ask questions about the basics, like what does it mean when we refer to “now”? Is there a past and a present or is the past an illusion caused by our perception of connected moments of consciousness? What does time mean if entities traveling at extreme velocities experience time at a dramatically reduced rate than those “standing still” relative to their motion? See what I mean? It gets deep pretty quickly.

If you’d like to spend a few hours questioning everything you know about something you’ve always taken for granted (and learn more about the way the universe works in the process), this is a book you should pick up.

[Fil Krynicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having just finished this book, I meant to take advantage of my "Now" to record my thoughts, before they are lost to the (perhaps illusory) past.

Falk's treatment of time is roughly chronological, appropriate if somewhat alarming - I spent a good deal of the book thinking I had mistook a bit of popular science for a treatment of the social and cultural perceptions of time through the ages. Those, while interesting, were not my primary interest. As with all history, however, Falk manages to spend as much time on the last hundred years as the ten thousand preceding them, which is appreciated.

The brisk treatment of the science of time was complementary to my previous knowledge. I was surprised to see David Deutsche appear as an important primary source, having read his Fabric of Reality a few years ago, but Falk does an admirable job distilling his ideas into a few digestible bites. That said, those bites are often so digestible that in the moments between reading one chapter and the next, the reader finds himself ravenous for more. Throughout my reading I would have given my arm to question a physicist: how can the astronaut return experiencing 11 years when the Earth experiences some hundred thousand; from the perspective of an observer on Earth, should not the exact opposite have happened?

Of course, this teasing is in a sense a source of inspiration. No other popular science book has led me to furiously scribble a Theory of Time and Consciousness in my notebook (of course both prefixed and suffixed with comments on my own ignorance), and if I was ten years (sic) younger I can imagine this book convincing me to abandon computer science for physics. Even Now, I do think I will pick up a textbook.

[Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whenever an author feels the need to insert himself into a nonfiction book, I can't help but cringe. If you expurgated all the repetitions, rhetorical questions, and personal reflections, you might be left with 50 pages of solid information.

Also I have no idea why the author felt the need to go for so many pages about some pet theory that animals have no capacity to imagine the past or future. Not only does it seem absurd on the face of it, but rival theories weren't even voiced or examined. It feels like someone wanted to put human minds in a special cradle, rather than placing it on a spectrum of evolved capabilities.

[Mike Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good, recent book about just how little we really understand about the nature of time. If you've read a lot of books on the history of science, the first couple of chapters will seem a bit repetitive, as it covers ground that most books of that sort cover. It explains how we've improved our ability to measure time from the seasonal cycles and stone circles of the ancients to modern atomic clocks. There's a good discussion of Newton's views on time as compared to Einstein's. There are some chapters on how scientists think time and the universe began and another on how they're likely to end. There is good coverage of the philosophers' views on time. The author notes that the biggest puzzle is the sense we have that time "flows". That typically means that it moves with respect to something else. But what is that something else? How do you measure the rate of that flow? What does one second per second mean? He notes that modern science and philosophy tend to agree that time may not flow at all. The sense of flow may be an illusion created for us by our minds. Yet the author isn't shy about saying that there must be more to time than simply another dimension like the three physical ones. All in all, this book will make you think. It is well written and easy to read. It will probably help if you have some familiarity with physics, but I don't think it's essential. I recommend this for everyone who wonders about that "curious dimension."