The Book of Time
The Secrets of Time, How It Works and How We Measure It
by Adam Hart-Davis
Mem. Ed. $23.99
Pub. Ed. $29.95
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Bonus Content
The Book of Time
You can’t sense it directly, yet it rules our lives and everything around us. Time can be measured with amazing accuracy, but what exactly is it? In The Book of Time, Adam Hart-Davis shows how scientists, philosophers, and religions have tried to explain time. The book explores how time works in the natural world and in our own bodies and minds. We trace how humans have tried to measure time, first with calendars and then with increasingly sophisticated devices—from the Ancient Indian ghati to water clocks, candles, turret clocks, pendulum clocks, chronometers, quartz crystals, pulsars, and the latest atomic clocks.
Throughout these pages there are features on time segments, from the age of the universe to an attosecond, or one quintillionth of a second. For each, we look at what can happen in that interval; for example, a nanosecond—a billionth of second—is all it takes for nuclear fusion to occur.
Among the questions addressed in the book:
• Why are there 365 days in a year? Or 60 minutes in an hour? What is a year or an hour anyway?
• Is time travel possible? How are space and time connected?
• Why would anyone need to measure a trillionth of a second?
• Is it true your feet are younger than your head?
• Why does time seem to drag when you’re bored and go quickly when you’re enjoying yourself?
Five sections of insightful text, color photographs, and sidebars explore time from different perspectives. We probe what time means for physics, philosophy, psychology, and religion; see how time is measured by the Sun, the Moon, the tides, and the seasons, and the way their changes are mirrored in our bodies; and recall how humans have organized time for social, religious, and commercial purposes. We also see how time has been an essential tool for thinkers from Aristotle to Einstein, underlying everything from acceleration to relativity.
The Book of Time is a fascinating account of a universal mystery.
Softcover : 272 pages
Publisher: Firefly Books Ltd. ( September 04, 2011 )
Item #: 13-419800
ISBN: 9781554079056
Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 9.75 inches
Product Weight: 29.0 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Copyright © Bookspan. Scientific American® is a registered trademark, used under license. Unauthorized use prohibited. All rights reserved.
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