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In Search of Time: The History, Physics, and Philosophy of Time - Paperback | Diverse Reads

In Search of Time: The History, Physics, and Philosophy of Time

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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.

ISBN-13: 9780312603519

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Publication Date: 01-05-2010

Pages: 352

Product Dimensions: 5.30(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

Dan Falk has written about science for The Boston Globe, The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, Astronomy, Nature, and New Scientist, and has been a regular contributor to the CBC Radio programs Ideas and Quirks and Quarks. His awards include a Gold Medal for Radio Programming from the New York Festivals and the Science Writing Award in Physics and Astronomy from the American Institute of Physics. His first book, Universe on a T-Shirt, won the 2002 Science in Society Journalism Award from the Canadian Science Writers' Association. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Introduction 1

01 Heavenly Clockwork: Time's natural cycles 9

02 Years, Months, Days: The quest for the perfect calendar 30

03 Hours. Minutes, Seconds: Dissecting the day 52

04 In Time's Grasp: Time and culture 79

05 The Persistence of Memory: A bridge across time 101

06 Isaac's Time: Newton, Leibniz, and the arrow of time 126

07 Albert's Time: Spacetime, relativity, and quantum theory 152

08 Back to the Future: The science of time travel 180

09 In The Beginning: The search for the dawn of time 204

10 Beyond The Big Bang: The frontiers of physics and the origin of time's arrow 225

11 All Things Must Pass: The ultimate fate of life, the universe, and everything 245

12 Illusion And Reality: Physics, philosophy, and the landscape of time 272

Notes 297

Bibliography 317

Index 323