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10 Things You Should Know
Tempo: 10 Coisas Que Deve Saber
O tempo não é, apenas, um dos mistérios mais persistentes da ciê
é um dos mistérios mais persistentes de toda a existência humana.
É um dos maiores quebra-cabeças da nossa história. O tempo, como tema, há séculos que deixa perplexas e fascinadas sucessivas gerações de cientistas, historiadores e muitos mais estudiosos. E continua a suscitar algumas das questões mais intrigantes colocadas na área da ciê O tempo pode ser parado? A viagem no tempo é possível? O tempo existe?
Em dez breves capítulos, escritos numa linguagem acessível, Colin Stuart, escritor premiado de astronomia, revela-nos essas e muitas outras grandes interrogações, apresentando-nos as reveladoras informações que todos deveríamos saber.
O que diz a crí
«Uma exploração emocionante de um dos aspetos mais fundamentais, mas também mais desconcertantes da existência.»
Lewis Dartnell, autor de Como a Terra nos criou
é um dos mistérios mais persistentes de toda a existência humana.
É um dos maiores quebra-cabeças da nossa história. O tempo, como tema, há séculos que deixa perplexas e fascinadas sucessivas gerações de cientistas, historiadores e muitos mais estudiosos. E continua a suscitar algumas das questões mais intrigantes colocadas na área da ciê O tempo pode ser parado? A viagem no tempo é possível? O tempo existe?
Em dez breves capítulos, escritos numa linguagem acessível, Colin Stuart, escritor premiado de astronomia, revela-nos essas e muitas outras grandes interrogações, apresentando-nos as reveladoras informações que todos deveríamos saber.
O que diz a crí
«Uma exploração emocionante de um dos aspetos mais fundamentais, mas também mais desconcertantes da existência.»
Lewis Dartnell, autor de Como a Terra nos criou
86 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 2, 2021
38 people are currently reading
619 people want to read
About the author
Colin Stuart
66 books27 followersColin Stuart is a renowned astronomy speaker and best-selling author. He was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a 2014 runner-up for the European Astronomy Journalism Prize. He lives in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
May 26, 2022
I downloaded this book for my Kindle without realising how short it was. After reading the first short essay I saw to my surprise that I was 12% through the book – it’s only 128 pages in total. I will say though that those pages contain some of the clearest explanations for the layman that I’ve encountered in books that discuss this topic. The book is pitched at the level of the general reader.
We start with explanations of things like the age of the universe and of the Earth, and how we know these things; at how looking at celestial objects is looking back in time; “Time’s arrow”, and the concept of entropy. About half-way through, the book starts to explain spacetime and how time dilation allows for a form of time travel into the future.
It’s no false modesty for me to say that I am baffled by many of the ideas within theoretical physics, but the above concepts were familiar even to me. As the book progresses though, the author touches on some of the profoundly mysterious aspects of time. He discusses the possibilities around time travel and the “grandfather paradox”, before introducing the reader to the “block universe” theory. This was something I hadn’t encountered before and I found it pretty interesting, although it’s an idea I will take a while to get used to.
I don’t imagine that anyone with a physics degree would learn much from this book, but for the rest of us it’s a fun and entertaining read, and I take my hat off to the author for the way he makes the subject comprehensible.
We start with explanations of things like the age of the universe and of the Earth, and how we know these things; at how looking at celestial objects is looking back in time; “Time’s arrow”, and the concept of entropy. About half-way through, the book starts to explain spacetime and how time dilation allows for a form of time travel into the future.
It’s no false modesty for me to say that I am baffled by many of the ideas within theoretical physics, but the above concepts were familiar even to me. As the book progresses though, the author touches on some of the profoundly mysterious aspects of time. He discusses the possibilities around time travel and the “grandfather paradox”, before introducing the reader to the “block universe” theory. This was something I hadn’t encountered before and I found it pretty interesting, although it’s an idea I will take a while to get used to.
I don’t imagine that anyone with a physics degree would learn much from this book, but for the rest of us it’s a fun and entertaining read, and I take my hat off to the author for the way he makes the subject comprehensible.
March 12, 2022
27th book of 2022.
As a man who only passed any Science classes as a kid because of his mother's intellect, this is a surprising venture for me. As a boy I was quite lucky: my parents, though both town planners, split the homework problems mostly between them; my dad: art, history, English; my mum: languages, science, maths. That's not to say they are experts in these subjects, but to me, as a boy, they might as well have been. Because as a boy, how things worked never interested me in the slightest. I was a typical English kid from the late 90s raised on Star Wars, Doctor Who, etc., and so time-travel, space, other planets and universes, these were the fruits of my early imagination. And I loved to write stories involving all these things, and yet it never occurred to me that the science classes I dreaded actually involved all the things I loved to watch/read/write about. Recently my girlfriend read this book and then gave it to me, telling me how fascinating it was. I guessed it probably would be, but in my head there was the simple equation Science = Boring. But I was quite wrong. Stuart writes this short book with a simple and relaxed tone filled with metaphors to explain all the big stuff like black holes, string theory, relativity, and whatever else. Amazingly, he didn't actually lose me much. The ideas themselves were beyond my poor brain, but at least how he explained them to me made enough sense in the moment. Anyway, here are some quotes from the book that just goes to show how baffling science really is. (Also credit to Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World, which is a stunning novel and somehow, without realising, opened up my adult brain to perhaps finally trying a little harder with science.) (Also, as ever, footnotes are my own doing, sadly this book is without pictures.)
—'Incredibly, 430 million years ago, the day was just under 21 hours long and there were 420 sunrises a year instead of 365.'
—'Condense the Earth's 4.54-billion-year lifespan into one twenty-four-hour period and the first modern humans appear at about six seconds to midnight. If the same stretch of time is represented by a 1-metre (3 feet) -long stick, all of human history would be crammed into the last 0.07 millimetres (0.003 inches). That's less than the width of a human hair and a distance too small for the human eye to discern.'
—'According to the latest astronomical measurements the Big Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago.'
—'The furthest object you can easily see in the night sky is Andromeda [1], the nearest major galaxy to our Milky Way [...] You can only see it as a faint smear of light because Andromeda is a whopping 2.5 million light years away. The light you're seeing first set off 2.5 million years ago, at a time when one of our ancestors—Australopithecus—was just starting to fashion the first tools out of stone. The first human species—Homo habilis—had appeared just 300,000 years earlier. Almost all of human history has played out in the time it's taken for the light from andromeda to reach us. Gazing out into space is a way to look a long way back in time [...] Let's flip things round and imagine a planet in Andromeda that's home to an advanced civilisation of aliens who are also capable of building telescopes. If they were able to zoom in and see the Earth, they wouldn't see a world of smartphones, social media and selfies. That light has only just left us and has a long way to go to get there. Instead they'd be receiving light that set off from Earth 2.5 million years ago. They'd see a planet inhabited by Australopithecus, sabre-toothed tigers and giant mammoths.'
—'Imagine a bed sheet held tightly at the four corners to represent the fabric of spacetime, with a bowling ball placed in the centre to stand in for the Sun. The bowling ball creates a dip in the sheet and if you add in a tennis ball you can roll it around the rim of the dip, making it orbit the bowling ball just like the Earth circles the Sun. Crucially there is no Newtonian force of attraction between the two balls. The smaller one isn't being pulled by the larger one, it's just following the curved path it creates in the sheet. This was Einstein's hunch about how gravity really works.'
—'Let's say you travel through the galaxy on a big loop at 99.9999 per cent of the speed of light—even faster than a muon—for ten years. You return a decade older, but seven thousand years will have flown by on Earth while you were away.'
—'Your feet are generally closer to the ground than your face, meaning they're deeper inside Earth's gravitational well. Less time passes for your ankles than your eyes. Your toes are time travellers, beating your tongue to the future by around half a millionth of a second over a typical eighty-year lifespan [...] All else being equal, the brain of someone who is 1.5 metres (5 feet) tall reaches the future faster than the brain of someone who is 1.8 metres (6 feet) tall.' [2]
—Entering a blackhole: 'Let's say you go in feet first. The gravity of the black hole will pull harder on your toes than on your head. This is true of Earth's gravity too, but the difference is beyond tiny. Inside a black hole it is significant, enough to stretch you out into long, thin strips of spaghetti. You get torn apart lengthways in a process genuinely called spaghettification. The pasta of your constituent parts will arrive at the centre of a black hole anywhere between a fraction of a microsecond and almost a day later depending on the size of the black hole.'
—When Einstein's best friend, Michele Besso, died a month before he did in 1955, Einstein wrote (one of the last letters he did write) to Besso's family. He said: ''He has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.''
Which is weirdly comforting, and makes me realise that it's a true gift to be able to read about these geniuses of humanity who have somehow made efforts to understand the world. Never before has the thought of trying to understand occurred to me. Recently my girlfriend and I watched Interstellar, which we adored, and is also referenced in here, as well as Doctor Who. I guess as a kid I thought writing about whatever I wanted was the true gift. But as I grow up it seems more to me that it's our 'duty' to understand as much as we can. So in that respect, those science-minded people are probably far more mature, who try to understand from the beginning.
_____________________________
[1]
[2] When mocked for my slowness about everyday life, this can now be my excuse. I'm tall and therefore slightly beyond everyone else in spacetime.
As a man who only passed any Science classes as a kid because of his mother's intellect, this is a surprising venture for me. As a boy I was quite lucky: my parents, though both town planners, split the homework problems mostly between them; my dad: art, history, English; my mum: languages, science, maths. That's not to say they are experts in these subjects, but to me, as a boy, they might as well have been. Because as a boy, how things worked never interested me in the slightest. I was a typical English kid from the late 90s raised on Star Wars, Doctor Who, etc., and so time-travel, space, other planets and universes, these were the fruits of my early imagination. And I loved to write stories involving all these things, and yet it never occurred to me that the science classes I dreaded actually involved all the things I loved to watch/read/write about. Recently my girlfriend read this book and then gave it to me, telling me how fascinating it was. I guessed it probably would be, but in my head there was the simple equation Science = Boring. But I was quite wrong. Stuart writes this short book with a simple and relaxed tone filled with metaphors to explain all the big stuff like black holes, string theory, relativity, and whatever else. Amazingly, he didn't actually lose me much. The ideas themselves were beyond my poor brain, but at least how he explained them to me made enough sense in the moment. Anyway, here are some quotes from the book that just goes to show how baffling science really is. (Also credit to Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World, which is a stunning novel and somehow, without realising, opened up my adult brain to perhaps finally trying a little harder with science.) (Also, as ever, footnotes are my own doing, sadly this book is without pictures.)
—'Incredibly, 430 million years ago, the day was just under 21 hours long and there were 420 sunrises a year instead of 365.'
—'Condense the Earth's 4.54-billion-year lifespan into one twenty-four-hour period and the first modern humans appear at about six seconds to midnight. If the same stretch of time is represented by a 1-metre (3 feet) -long stick, all of human history would be crammed into the last 0.07 millimetres (0.003 inches). That's less than the width of a human hair and a distance too small for the human eye to discern.'
—'According to the latest astronomical measurements the Big Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago.'
—'The furthest object you can easily see in the night sky is Andromeda [1], the nearest major galaxy to our Milky Way [...] You can only see it as a faint smear of light because Andromeda is a whopping 2.5 million light years away. The light you're seeing first set off 2.5 million years ago, at a time when one of our ancestors—Australopithecus—was just starting to fashion the first tools out of stone. The first human species—Homo habilis—had appeared just 300,000 years earlier. Almost all of human history has played out in the time it's taken for the light from andromeda to reach us. Gazing out into space is a way to look a long way back in time [...] Let's flip things round and imagine a planet in Andromeda that's home to an advanced civilisation of aliens who are also capable of building telescopes. If they were able to zoom in and see the Earth, they wouldn't see a world of smartphones, social media and selfies. That light has only just left us and has a long way to go to get there. Instead they'd be receiving light that set off from Earth 2.5 million years ago. They'd see a planet inhabited by Australopithecus, sabre-toothed tigers and giant mammoths.'
—'Imagine a bed sheet held tightly at the four corners to represent the fabric of spacetime, with a bowling ball placed in the centre to stand in for the Sun. The bowling ball creates a dip in the sheet and if you add in a tennis ball you can roll it around the rim of the dip, making it orbit the bowling ball just like the Earth circles the Sun. Crucially there is no Newtonian force of attraction between the two balls. The smaller one isn't being pulled by the larger one, it's just following the curved path it creates in the sheet. This was Einstein's hunch about how gravity really works.'
—'Let's say you travel through the galaxy on a big loop at 99.9999 per cent of the speed of light—even faster than a muon—for ten years. You return a decade older, but seven thousand years will have flown by on Earth while you were away.'
—'Your feet are generally closer to the ground than your face, meaning they're deeper inside Earth's gravitational well. Less time passes for your ankles than your eyes. Your toes are time travellers, beating your tongue to the future by around half a millionth of a second over a typical eighty-year lifespan [...] All else being equal, the brain of someone who is 1.5 metres (5 feet) tall reaches the future faster than the brain of someone who is 1.8 metres (6 feet) tall.' [2]
—Entering a blackhole: 'Let's say you go in feet first. The gravity of the black hole will pull harder on your toes than on your head. This is true of Earth's gravity too, but the difference is beyond tiny. Inside a black hole it is significant, enough to stretch you out into long, thin strips of spaghetti. You get torn apart lengthways in a process genuinely called spaghettification. The pasta of your constituent parts will arrive at the centre of a black hole anywhere between a fraction of a microsecond and almost a day later depending on the size of the black hole.'
—When Einstein's best friend, Michele Besso, died a month before he did in 1955, Einstein wrote (one of the last letters he did write) to Besso's family. He said: ''He has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.''
Which is weirdly comforting, and makes me realise that it's a true gift to be able to read about these geniuses of humanity who have somehow made efforts to understand the world. Never before has the thought of trying to understand occurred to me. Recently my girlfriend and I watched Interstellar, which we adored, and is also referenced in here, as well as Doctor Who. I guess as a kid I thought writing about whatever I wanted was the true gift. But as I grow up it seems more to me that it's our 'duty' to understand as much as we can. So in that respect, those science-minded people are probably far more mature, who try to understand from the beginning.
_____________________________
[1]
[2] When mocked for my slowness about everyday life, this can now be my excuse. I'm tall and therefore slightly beyond everyone else in spacetime.
August 23, 2022
Time
I fell in love with this book during the preface. The author’s experience of school physics was exactly mine – the unbearable tedium, and (to me) pointlessness, of repeating basic experiments ad infinitum and writing up soulless methodology. I gave up, and followed my penchant for languages, history and literature. Colin Stuart, however, realised the potential of the subject I had dismissed as forever alien to me:
“Reading about these ideas as a teenager changed my life. After discovering them I was never going to study anything other than physics. I simply had to know more. At a stroke I realised the subject was far richer than the boring circuits and levers taught in the classroom”.
Ian’s comprehensive review, here, led me to the book:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I, the ultimate scientific ignoramus, could actually follow this very short summary, at least able to visualise the ideas, if not, of course, the genius that lay behind them. What’s more, I hugely enjoyed my dawn of understanding and am now even considering doing some kind of related Open University short course (when I retire!). The book is described, soberly, by comparison to the chapter titles, as “A brief journey through the greatest mystery of our universe”. The chapter titles are great fun, including such entertaining tasters as “The Earth Is a Terrible Timekeeper”, and “Your Feet are Younger than Your Head”; and these short essays include many an amusing, or dramatic, anecdote that serve to illustrate and clarify their concepts.
The serious content is astounding for the non-scientist. Among the scientific discoveries whose ‘beauty and truth’ (let me just bring in Keats!) I now feel I can begin to grasp is that gravity is not a force, which pulls; it is rather the curvature of spacetime, a dilation; so when scientists use the term “gravity” they mean something quite different from what I had pictured (apples falling off trees and hitting Isaac Newton on the head). Sorry, my knowledge really was/is that basic. But re-defining terms that had become fixed in my brain was intensely liberating . Time itself, a property of light over distance; I had heard all this before, notably from Professor Brian Cox, but reading this book enabled me to enter into it in a much more personal way. Colin Stuart’s concise chapters move from practical, physical discoveries to logical, physical deductions and theories that stimulate and excite. I am under no illusion that I could remotely understand anything of the calculations, but I basked in the shadow of such as Einstein and John Wheeler. Colin Stuart does not shy away from moral questions; one chapter bears the title, “Can You Kill Hitler?”, and his last chapter contains perhaps the most deeply moving message I have read, from Einstein, to the family of his friend who had just died, not in the actual words quoted, but in their context and import. I haven’t quoted from the chapters so as not to spoil them, but the section I quoted above, from the preface, continues,
“I’ve spent the last twelve years writing and speaking about time and space because I want to give you that same revelatory moment.”
I expect it’s obvious from my review that he did that for me!
I fell in love with this book during the preface. The author’s experience of school physics was exactly mine – the unbearable tedium, and (to me) pointlessness, of repeating basic experiments ad infinitum and writing up soulless methodology. I gave up, and followed my penchant for languages, history and literature. Colin Stuart, however, realised the potential of the subject I had dismissed as forever alien to me:
“Reading about these ideas as a teenager changed my life. After discovering them I was never going to study anything other than physics. I simply had to know more. At a stroke I realised the subject was far richer than the boring circuits and levers taught in the classroom”.
Ian’s comprehensive review, here, led me to the book:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I, the ultimate scientific ignoramus, could actually follow this very short summary, at least able to visualise the ideas, if not, of course, the genius that lay behind them. What’s more, I hugely enjoyed my dawn of understanding and am now even considering doing some kind of related Open University short course (when I retire!). The book is described, soberly, by comparison to the chapter titles, as “A brief journey through the greatest mystery of our universe”. The chapter titles are great fun, including such entertaining tasters as “The Earth Is a Terrible Timekeeper”, and “Your Feet are Younger than Your Head”; and these short essays include many an amusing, or dramatic, anecdote that serve to illustrate and clarify their concepts.
The serious content is astounding for the non-scientist. Among the scientific discoveries whose ‘beauty and truth’ (let me just bring in Keats!) I now feel I can begin to grasp is that gravity is not a force, which pulls; it is rather the curvature of spacetime, a dilation; so when scientists use the term “gravity” they mean something quite different from what I had pictured (apples falling off trees and hitting Isaac Newton on the head). Sorry, my knowledge really was/is that basic. But re-defining terms that had become fixed in my brain was intensely liberating . Time itself, a property of light over distance; I had heard all this before, notably from Professor Brian Cox, but reading this book enabled me to enter into it in a much more personal way. Colin Stuart’s concise chapters move from practical, physical discoveries to logical, physical deductions and theories that stimulate and excite. I am under no illusion that I could remotely understand anything of the calculations, but I basked in the shadow of such as Einstein and John Wheeler. Colin Stuart does not shy away from moral questions; one chapter bears the title, “Can You Kill Hitler?”, and his last chapter contains perhaps the most deeply moving message I have read, from Einstein, to the family of his friend who had just died, not in the actual words quoted, but in their context and import. I haven’t quoted from the chapters so as not to spoil them, but the section I quoted above, from the preface, continues,
“I’ve spent the last twelve years writing and speaking about time and space because I want to give you that same revelatory moment.”
I expect it’s obvious from my review that he did that for me!
March 27, 2025
"the future is already out there waiting for you".
March 5, 2022
Brilliant and fascinating.
July 9, 2023
Some stuff that might have never crossed your mind! Very scientific and interesting.
February 11, 2022
A wonderful little succinct book on time, expertly written by Colin Stuart. Time is such an intriguing topic and this book delved into all the weird and wonderful aspects and concepts of time. It’s one to mind blow and learn plenty from and I really loved reading it!
It’s not very long and perfect to read in a sitting. It’s also great for all kinds of reader, whether you’re a physicist or if you know nothing about time whatsoever (except that you’re always running out of it or never seem to have enough to get things done!)
It was very easy to read and you’ll learn a lot right from the first page!
It’s not very long and perfect to read in a sitting. It’s also great for all kinds of reader, whether you’re a physicist or if you know nothing about time whatsoever (except that you’re always running out of it or never seem to have enough to get things done!)
It was very easy to read and you’ll learn a lot right from the first page!
Read
April 14, 2025wonderfully accessible without being dumbed down
February 3, 2025
Science lite but very well done
August 9, 2022
Søt og kjapplest liten bok om tid. Ble litt for «fysikk-ete» for meg enkelte steder, men mye spennende også, og kudos til forfatteren for at han klarer å forklare så kompliserte konsepter sånn at vi normale mennesker kan noenlunde forstå 🤓🤪 Anbefales til alle som ble fascinert av Interstellar-filmen en gang i tiden!
May 12, 2023
Doesn't matter how dumbed down you can make it I'll never be a physics girly.
But some science facts did stick.
I love these little books for a quick knowledge check.
But some science facts did stick.
I love these little books for a quick knowledge check.
July 13, 2024
Gave me an existential crisis. 4 stars.
October 14, 2024
10/10 - will 10000000% read again
November 5, 2024
Met slechts een goede honderd bladzijdes, klein formaat, grote interlinie en een hoop witte bladzijdes is dit iets dat je echt op een hik en een kik uitleest, zoals ze dat in mijn omgeving zeggen. In tien korte hoofdstukken behandelt Colin Stuart tien grote vragen over tijd in de fysica, in de wereld rondom ons, en hoe die tijd ons beïnvloedt. Een deel van wat er wordt verteld, wist ik al wel - het meeste, eigenlijk - maar hij sleurt er allerlei vergelijkingen bij die een beter beeld geven van de grootteorde van die reusachtige getallen waarmee gespeeld wordt. Dat maakt het duidelijk en behapbaar.
De vertaling is van Paul Janse, die goed werk geleverd heeft. Vooral de inleiding was vast pittig, met al die gezegdes en uitdrukkingen en vaste verbindingen waarin tijd een rol speelt. Alles leest vlot, voor zover ik weet was het ook technisch correct en er stond niet één fout in. Mooi werk.
8/10
De vertaling is van Paul Janse, die goed werk geleverd heeft. Vooral de inleiding was vast pittig, met al die gezegdes en uitdrukkingen en vaste verbindingen waarin tijd een rol speelt. Alles leest vlot, voor zover ik weet was het ook technisch correct en er stond niet één fout in. Mooi werk.
8/10
July 1, 2023
For a short book it packs a heck of a lot in and can be done in one go (with snacks). It left me feeling ever-more curious about the world, and how mysterious life as we know it, really is. The best and most thought provoking chapter I personally found, was indeed saved until last. I found it to be a fascinating read that took me out of my comfort zone (in a good way). You don't need to be a physicist to be able to understand and enjoy this book, and I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in life beyond the mundane of 'get up, go to work/ study, come home, sleep' - which really, is probably most people!
December 31, 2021
I picked up Time this morning and couldn't put it down until I had finished. That's how compelling Colin Stuart's book is, expanding your mind with each chapter. It's a quick and compelling read, the author finding simple analogies to explain complex concepts and giving each chapter enough historical context.
It's great for physics enthusiasts and novices alike or anyone curious about the universe and/or with a penchant for Sci fi. It will challenge your brain in all the right ways and is a delightful read. Highly recommend.
It's great for physics enthusiasts and novices alike or anyone curious about the universe and/or with a penchant for Sci fi. It will challenge your brain in all the right ways and is a delightful read. Highly recommend.
August 11, 2022
Really enjoyable read this on a very big topic. Even if you're not a fan of Physics or Quantum Physics you will find this book on time very accessible. You will discover what a true genius Einstein was-if you don't already think so- you will find out fun facts about time that you can try to impress friends and colleagues with and most of all you will begin to think about time in all sorts of different ways. Most of all you will find out that David Tennant's Dr Who wasn't so far of the mark with his comments about time !
June 8, 2025
EN: This was a short but fascinating audiobook. It tackles some of the biggest questions about time and explains them in a way that’s clear and actually enjoyable. The author breaks things down with simple but clever examples, and each chapter gives you something new to think about.
I especially liked how each chapter had its own unique way of looking at time, and even the epilogue was worth paying attention to. I’ll definitely come back to this one, and it made me want to dig deeper into the subject.
I especially liked how each chapter had its own unique way of looking at time, and even the epilogue was worth paying attention to. I’ll definitely come back to this one, and it made me want to dig deeper into the subject.
August 28, 2022
I devoured this book in one sitting: accessible, entertaining, genuinely fascinating and wonderfully written to boot. I particularly enjoyed the analogies (effective in circumventing my less-than-rudimentary understanding of physics) and the author’s passion for the subject is not only palpable but infectious. If it was possible to travel back through time to experience the joy of this book all over again, I absolutely would
January 25, 2023
One of the best books i’ve read about time. It’s brief, only 105 pages. But talks about time and the modern theories about it and the space in a very understandable way without making it too complicated and fiction like. Because it’s a recent book, the references are quite new and the author also has a balanced sense of humor. I love the metaphors he’s using to explain certain dilemmas. It’s a science book but explained in short bits, such a page turner!
January 31, 2024
Gezien ik dit boekje in het Nederlands las, zal ik het ook in het Nederlands recenseren.
Dit is een zeer beknopt boekje, elk onderwerp wordt in een zevental pagina's zeer helder uitgelegd.
Je leert meer over het onderdelen van tijd, tijdreizen, het vervlechten van ruimte en tijd, het "blokuniversum" en tenslotte nog enkele paradoxen zoals de grootvaderparadox en de informatieparadox.
Voor al wie geïnteresseerd is in tijd, is dit een handig opstapboekje.
Dit is een zeer beknopt boekje, elk onderwerp wordt in een zevental pagina's zeer helder uitgelegd.
Je leert meer over het onderdelen van tijd, tijdreizen, het vervlechten van ruimte en tijd, het "blokuniversum" en tenslotte nog enkele paradoxen zoals de grootvaderparadox en de informatieparadox.
Voor al wie geïnteresseerd is in tijd, is dit een handig opstapboekje.
January 26, 2025
Excellent and very short book. What I love about it is its brevity forces the author to keep ideas simple. No rambling or tangents. Just the core ideas. Also love the popular themes with film and TV references to help us follow along.
I came to this book as I was trying to figure out what time really is. I leave understanding it a bit better. But realise now it’s a question alot of physicists are grappling with and remains an open question.
I came to this book as I was trying to figure out what time really is. I leave understanding it a bit better. But realise now it’s a question alot of physicists are grappling with and remains an open question.
June 23, 2025
Based on how the Space book in this series turned out, I was not expecting to enjoy this as much as I did. The author did a fantastic job of using everyday language to explain complicated scientific concepts but without dumbing it down. The topics were interesting and I actually found myself reading the entire book in one sitting rather than breaking it up into smaller chunks like I’d originally planned on doing.
July 9, 2023
This is really old ground. If this is your first book on these concepts, you will like it. But I didn't see anything in here that I hadn't seen somewhere else, explained a little better. Colin Stuart is a good lay-science writer, but these concepts have been covered by better ones, in my opinion.
April 18, 2024
This is a really accessible read about the theories and paradoxes surrounding the study of time. Time is still a complex and confusing topic even when explained in layman’s terms. I’ve read a lot of popular science books; therefore, a lot of the concepts were already familiar to me. It was still interesting to read and it included a fair few thought experiments.
May 19, 2025
Fun, short book filled with interesting facts that tickle your brain. I've been exposed to some mind-blowing information about time(travel) and it's passage, about gravity and light, but when I try to talk about it with a friend the quote from the preface rings true: ''What is time? If no one asks me, I know; if i wish to explain [it], I know not.''
February 11, 2022
I wonder if I'd have liked this one better had I read it first. Compared to the other two, it was so boring in places! Partly because it repeated a lot of what was mentioned in Space: 10 Things You Should Know but it's also boring in its own right.
March 28, 2022
This was so godamn good, it was fascinating and extremely well written. The concepts were explained very well (for someone like me who only had a rudimentary knowledge of time/space). I’m recommending this to everyone 😅📖 I would give it more stars if I could 😅🪐
October 24, 2022
สั้น กระชับ อ่านจบได้ในรวดเดียว รู้สึกถูกกระตุ้นด้วยบทสุดท้าย กับถามว่า Where does tomorrow come from? ตอนพูดว่า Our entrenched sense that only “now” is real is wrong. ในแง่หนึ่งก็ชอบความคิดนี้ Everyone who ever lived and everyone who will ever live co-exists, just in different parts of spacetime.
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