Time & Space

Eyewitness Science

by Mary Gribbin

Bake a soufflé, and you'll never unscramble the ingredients again. Unless, that is, you twist the ends of a wormhole around several times and drive a rocket through it, traveling back to a time before you ever cracked an egg. In Time & Space , part of the Eyewitness Science series, you'll learn all about time travel, wormholes, and all the ways that the universe is thought to be constructed. Stand-ins from real life (like orange peels, broken glasses, and trains) help you figure out what Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and other physicists mean when they refer to black holes, space-time distortion, and other strange cosmic things. Starting with ancient ideas about space and time, and ending with the imaginary construction of a wormhole through time, Time & Space takes you on a colorfully illustrated trip through history, with great photos of the tools people have used to measure time and distance in many cultures. This is a great starter book in astrophysics, and it will help you understand things like whether the universe has always existed, what star systems look like, and what would happen to you if you fell into a black hole. (Ages 12 and older) --Therese Littleton

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Childrens, Space

64 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 1994

About the author

Mary Gribbin works in education in East Sussex and writes books about science for children. She won The TES Junior Information Book Award for her book Time and the Universe, and has written a series of books for Ladybird. She has also worked with John Gribbin on Being Human, Ice Age, and major biographies of Richard Feynman and Robert FitzRoy, as well as the "in 90 minutes" series of mini-biographies of Galileo, Newton, Halley, Faraday, Darwin, Mendel, Curie, and Einstein.

She has written for a wide range of newspapers and magazines including She, Cosmopolitan, and the Guardian, has a degree in psychology and has worked for twenty years with children of all ages from 4 to 16. In an earlier incarnation, she was at one time the youngest County Councillor in England. Her other interests include floristry, antiques, and interior design.

Reviews

[Rajesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the books in my high school library and had a huge impact on my understanding of and interest in science. With likeminded friends, I'd frequent the library after school hours only to check out books like this one. I don't know how relevant it is today, but highly recommended for anyone with a curiosity in space, time and science in general.

[David Hillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book held by several children's libaries.

[Rachael Strieper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has lots of readings with vivid details. Abundance of pictures inregards or models, space, and important people in history of space study, several theories to astronomical phenomenon. This book helps you understand the connection between space and time I would recommend for older children between ages 9 to 13 years old.

[JoshuaB CLC · Rating 5 out of 5]

One great non-fiction book is Eyewitness: Time and Space by John Gribbin. In it you can delve deep into the theory of relativity, explore quantum theory and even learn how to make a time and space machine.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Greatly informative book, but I'm was hoping it would advance my understanding of time and space more than it did. I really want to understand these concepts better, but this book was maybe a little too fragmented and simplified.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is very interesting, but WAY to many words. I almost fell asleep a few times.