Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #197502 in Books
• Published on: 1996-04-25
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Independent on Sunday
'Intriguing and important... a fascinating discussion of why Einstein's can
be the last word on the subject'

Guardian
'Sublime stuff for armchair physicists'

New Statesman
'A tour of some of the most exciting - and outlandish - work in
modern physics... Writing with passion and wit, he lets his scientific
message shine through'

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive and informative
Time has become a huge subject, particularly since Hawking set pen to paper, and raised the popular science bar. Davis's book shows just how many aspects of time can be considered, and how many unanswered questions remain after Einstein and others blew the concept apart early in the 20th century.

Each chapter is largely self-contained, is intelligent and accesible, and manages not to patronise - a flaw of so much of the popular science genre. The scientist biographies are there of course, as are the obligatory Feynman diagrams, but what sets this apart from similar books are the chapters on perception. "What time is now" is superbly thought-provoking, as it explores how our minds perceive each moment of time... novel and just a little frightening

Excellent look into how time is understood in physics
Out of the 4 Paul Davies books I have read, while they all have been enjoyable this is probably his best. It is not a good place for new comers in popular physics to start but those with some basic knowledge will really enjoy this book.
It deals mostly with trying to explain Einstein's concept of time and space and the importance it has on understanding our world. It does, however, deal a lot with time in the quantum world, which is where the book is at its best, this is of course seperate from Einstein's own dislike for many of the concepts (such as total randomness) used in Quantum physics. That said it is Davies' intention to show the importance of spacetime in all aspects of the universe.

For anyone interested in what exactly is meant by spacetime, and what this implies, this is definately the book for you.

Mostly great
This book is fascinating. The Author has done a great job of explaining some quite tricky concepts, and the book is really easy to read. The one complaint I have is that the last few chapters seem to get a bit bogged down - I think thats the nature of the subject though. Will definately confuse you, but in a good way.