Dimensions
162 x 240 x 32mm
Nothing seems more real than time passing. We experience life itself as a succession of moments. Yet throughout history, the idea that time is an illusion has been a religious and philosophical commonplace. We identify certain truths as 'eternal' constants, from moral principles to the laws of mathematics and nature: these are laws that exist not inside time, but outside it.
Many physicists, therefore, don't believe in time. From Newton and Einstein to today's string theorists and quantum physicists, the widest consensus is that the universe is governed by absolute, timeless laws. On this view, everything that happens, has happened or will happen is set by these laws: in such a determined future, there is no such thing as uncertainty.
In Time Reborn, Lee Smolin argues that this denial of time is holding back both physics, and our understanding of the universe. We need a major revolution in scientific thought: one that embraces the reality of time and places it at the centre of our thinking. E may equal mc squared now, but that wasn't always the case. Similarly, as our undertsanding of the universe develops, Newton's fundamental laws might not remain so fundamental. Time, Smolin concludes, is not an illusion: it is the best clue we have to fundamental reality. Time Reborn explains how the true nature of time impacts on us, our world, and our universe.
