The Mystery of Time: Humanity's Quest for Order and Measure

by John Langone

We all know that time is the template with which we define our lives. We also know it is on our side, is up, and flies, especially when we're having fun. There are bath time and bedtime, good times and bad, an entire biblical catalogue from the book of Ecclesiastes. But what is it? Where did time come from and where does it go? The answer is as slippery as silverfish; it has eluded history's most magnificent minds. Early Christian church father and philosopher St. Augustine of Hippo "What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know. If I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not. My soul is on fire to know this most intricate enigma." In his newest book, The Mystery of Time, award-winning author John Langone invites the reader into the inquiry. We see our earliest ancestors observe the movement of herds, the shifting sky, and the cycles of budding and bloom. We marvel in the dark at Stonehenge and at a path of solstice sun inching over a Native American calendar glyph. We stand next to the magnificent water clock of the Chinese inventor Su Sung, and we rock on the deck of an English ship to check on the first shipboard clock reliable enough for determining accurate longitude. We search for clues to what governs our circadian rhythms and contemplate the backward flow of subatomic time. From the imaginative designs of Galileo to the soaring discoveries of Einstein, we go on to the latest debates and into the farthest reaches of modern thought on the nature of time. Along the way, me meet Julius Caesar, Ptolemy, Newton, and Stephen Hawking -- plus dozens of others whose study and struggle, feuding and folly, have played a part in the story. With more than 200 colorful and instructive illustrations and fact boxes, in language that is lively and accessible, The Mystery of Time traces the story of humanity's struggle to come to terms with the concept of to measure it, to use it, to standardize it, to beat it, and finally to understand it.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, History, Philosophy

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2000

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What then, is time? If no one asks me, I know. If I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not. - St Augustine of Hippo (p. 7)

11th-century Islamic scientist/philosopher Avicenna "argued that time existed only in the mind, based on our memories and expectations." Isaac Newton said it was a substance. (p. 7)

"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."- John Wheeler (p. 8)

"Wounds heal in time, things are constructed in time, things disappear in time and are destroyed in time, but this is not what time does." B. F. Skinner (p. 8)

Heraclitus argued "that there was no permanent reality but the reality of change, which characterized everything, and that the only possible real state was the transitional one of becoming. (p. 14)

"Time may not only be queerer than we imagine, but queerer than we can imagine." - British scientist J B S Haldane (p. 23)

Einstein characterized the past, present, and future as a persistent illusion. (p. 23)

Wherever anything lives, there is, open somewhere, a register in which time is being inscribed." Henri-Louis Bergson (p. 27)

[Michelle Painter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has fed my primary human trait: curiosity. It answered questions I didn't know I had. It answered many "why" questions and thought I have had over the years. More importantly, it created new questions and ponderings for me to mull over. The photographs are beautiful, and the concepts discussed, engaging. My science-oriented mind that has been "on hold" for a while (being in the school system and needing to focus on exactly what they boxed us into with each subject, not allowing for the philosophical, beyond the curriculum thoughts and questions I had bouncing around in my head) and this opened that box back up again to be where I want it to be. Fantastic read!