About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution
Paul Davies, "About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution"
Simon & Schuster | 1996 | ISBN: 0671799649, 0684818221 | 320 pages | Djvu | 2,7 MB
Simon & Schuster | 1996 | ISBN: 0671799649, 0684818221 | 320 pages | Djvu | 2,7 MB
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.
Summary: About Time someone wrote this book!
Rating: 5
Davies is an excellent author! This is my first read of one of his books and I found it easy to follow and very exciting to read. In fact I have purchased two more of his books and both seem to be of the same high quality of scholarship and easy style. Some of the concepts are tough but only because of our own individual histories and backgrounds. The physics are great, the math, held to a minimum but with enough insight into the math to make sense.
Thank you to the author, who is prolific by the way, and I will be buying even more of your books!
Larry Phenneger
Summary: About Time
Rating: 4
I liked this book. When I read the first pages, I thought that I had chosen the wrong book, but afterwards everything changed. Here you can find a light and clear review of many aspects of time.
It is not perfect, and some times it is not clear what the author means with "time reversal", etc, even if he tries to explain it several times. The theory about the proximity of Doomsday is also quite weak.
In spite of this, you find a clear view of time as it is currently known by science. I have not found many new ideas, but in general they are well structured and consolidates what you have read separately in many other books. Apart from that, it has good rhythm, and it is easy to read and understand.
Summary: Entertaining, informative and very well written.
Rating: 5
This, as the title states, is a book about time; all the possible aspects of time, from that of the Greek philosophers, through Newton's idea of time, to Einstein's relativistic view of time and beyond. The book is a blend of philosophy, physics and physiology, but heaviest on the physics aspects of time. Everyone thinks that they know what time is, but on closer examination it is not so clear what time actually is. Is it an illusion or just the interval between events? Does it flow, or is it only perceived to do so? Does time always run forward, or can it run backwards? What is imaginary time, or quantum time? Did time start at the instant of the big bang? What does time look like in a black hole? How does the brain perceive time?
To the ancient Greeks time was a mystery, to Newton time was absolute and to Einstein it is relative to the observer. All these are subjects (and much more) that are discussed in the book; discussed in a very literate and highly entertaining manner. This is not, however, a physics text, although much of it is concerned with the physics of time. There are no equations and only the results of relativity theory, quantum mechanics and cosmology are discussed, not the details. Nonetheless, it brings time to life (to use the sort of analogy that is discussed in the book) in a way that the details of a physics text cannot. I highly recommend this book to students and to anyone who wants their perception of the most basic aspect of consciousness challenged. Read this book and you will never perceive time in quite the same way again.
Download
0 comments:
Post a Comment
report broken linkhere if link is broken