Time in Powers of Ten: Natural Phenomena and Their Timescales

by Gerard 't Hooft, Stefan Vandoren

With a Foreword by Steven WeinbergIn this richly illustrated book, Nobel Laureate Gerard 't Hooft and Theoretical Physicist Stefan Vandoren describe the enormous diversity of natural phenomena that take place at different time scales.In the tradition of the bestseller "Powers of Ten," the authors zoom in and out in time, each step with a factor of ten. Starting from one second, time scales are enlarged until processes are reached that take much longer than the age of the universe. After the largest possible eternities, the reader is treated to the shortest and fastest phenomena known. Then the authors increase with powers of ten, until again the second is reached at the end of the book.At each time scale, interesting natural phenomena occur, spread over all scientific disciplines: orbital and rotation periods of planets and stars, decay times of elementary particles and atoms, biological rhythms and evolution processes, but also the different geological time scales.Contents: "Part I: "100 Seconds = 1 Second101 Seconds = 10 Seconds102 Seconds = 100 Seconds = 1 Minute, 40 Seconds103 Seconds = 1,000 Seconds = 16 Minutes, 40 Seconds104 Seconds = 10,000 Seconds = 2.78 Hours105 Seconds = 100,000 Seconds = 1.16 Days = 27.78 Hours106 Seconds = 1,000,000 = 1 Million Seconds = 11.57 Days = 1.65 Weeks106.41 Seconds = 2,592,000 Seconds = 30 Days 1 Month107 Seconds = 10 Million Seconds = 115.74 Days = 3.86 Months108 Seconds = 100 Million Seconds = 3.17 Years109 Seconds = 1 Billion Seconds = 31.7 Years1010 Seconds = 10 Billion Seconds = 317 Years1011 Seconds = 100 Billion Seconds = 3,171 Years1012 Seconds = 1 Trillion Seconds = 31,710 Years1013 Seconds = 10 Trillion Seconds = 317,098 Years1014 Seconds = 100 Trillion Seconds = 3.17 Million Years1015 Seconds = 1 Quadrillion Seconds = 31.7 Million Years1016 Seconds = 10 Quadrillion Seconds = 317 Million Years1017 Seconds = 100 Quadrillion Seconds = 3.17 Billion Years1018 Seconds = 1 Quintillion Seconds = 31.7 Billion years: The Large Timescales1021 seconds = 1 Sextillion Seconds = 3.17 x 1013 Years: The Large Timescales1028 Seconds = 3.17 x 1020 Years: The Large Timescales1032 Seconds: To Infinity and Beyond: The Dark Eternities"Part II: "10-44 to 10-26 Seconds: Small Timescales10-25 Seconds10-24 Seconds = 1 Yoctosecond10-23 Seconds = 10 Yoctoseconds10-22 Seconds = 100 Yoctoseconds10-21 Seconds = 1 Zeptosecond10-20 Seconds = 10 Zeptoseconds10-19 Seconds = 100 Zeptoseconds10-18 Seconds = 1 Attosecond10-17 Seconds = 10 Attoseconds10-16 Seconds = 100 Attoseconds10-15 Seconds = 1 Femtosecond10-14 Seconds = 10 Femtoseconds10-13 Seconds = 100 Femtoseconds10-12 Seconds = 1 Picosecond10-11 Seconds = 10 Picoseconds10-10 Seconds = 100 Picoseconds10-9 Seconds = 1 Nanosecond10-8 Seconds = 10 Nanoseconds10-7 Seconds = 100 Nanoseconds10-6 Seconds = 1 Microsecond10-5 Seconds = 10 Microseconds10-4 Seconds = 100 Microseconds = 0.0001 Seconds10

Genres: Science, Physics

231 pages, ebook

First published July 30, 2013

About the author

Gerard 't Hooft Professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Shared 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics

Reviews

[Cade · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an ideal book for reading in the bathroom. It consists of many chapters, each about physical phenomena with a duration/timescale of a certain order of magnitude from the Planck time all the way up to the largest conceivable future age of the universe. The forward describes this book as a coffee table book because it is not intended to be read straight through, and it is indeed attractively laid out and illustrated. However, this is not a "Big Book of Barns" type of book where you just look at the pictures with a token caption. The meat is the text with some token pictures for visual effect. The text is a translation, but it is very well-written with a plain and concise style suitable to such a book.

This book loses 1 star for all the radioactive element half-lives. I think it is interesting that elements have half-lives spanning many orders of magnitude, but I don't really care to see which specific isotope has a half-life of X seconds in every chapter. I also deduct another star just for general effect. This was a book I admired but didn't hugely enjoy. This is probably my own fault as I did what the authors warned against doing which was reading the book cover-to-cover in a few days like it was a narrative.

[Mills College Library]

502 H778 2014