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Richard Feynman once quipped: "Time
is what happens when nothing else does." But Julian
Barbour disagrees: if nothing happened, if nothing changed,
time would stop. For time is nothing but change. It is change
that we perceive occurring all around us, not time. In fact,
time doesn't exist.
In this highly provocative volume, Barbour
presents the basic evidence for the nonexistence of time,
explaining what a timeless universe is like and showing
how the world will nonetheless be experienced as intensely
temporal. It is a book that strikes at the heart of modern
physics, that casts doubt on Einstein's greatest contribution,
the space-time continuum, but that also points to the solution
of one of the greatest paradoxes of modern science: the
chasm between classical and quantum physics. Indeed, Barbour
argues that the unification of Einstein's general relativity
and quantum mechanics may well spell the end of time --
time will cease to have a role in the foundations of physics.
Barbour writes with remarkable clarity,
as he ranges from ancient philosophers such as Heraclitus
and Parmenides, to such giants of science as Galileo, Newton,
and Einstein, to the work of contemporary physicists such
as John Wheeler, Roger Penrose, and Steven Hawking. Along
the way, the author treats us to an enticing look at some
of the mysteries of the universe and presents intriguing
ideas about multiple worlds, time travel, immortality, and,
above all, the illusion of motion.
Turning our understanding of reality inside-out,
The End of Time is a vibrantly written and revolutionary
book.
Julian Barbour has worked on foundational
issues in physics for 35 years, and has made important and
original contributions to the theory of time and inertia,
on which he is an acknowledged expert. He is the author
of the widely praised Absolute or Relative Motion?,
Volume I, and is working on the second volume. He lives
near Oxford, UK.
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