The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Barbour is a research physicist who works without formal ties to the academy. Here, he presents his thesis that time and motion do not exist; they are illusions. The first portion of the book is rather philosophical in tone, but most of the work is concerned with the struggle to resolve the disparities among classical physics, quantum mechanics, and general relativity. Barbour argues that the omission of time from the foundations of physics will enable scientists to achieve a unified theory of physics. At the moment many physicists have not accepted this remarkable viewpoint; it seems to be a desperate expedient to resolve a set of problems that may yet be solved by other means. Even so, this is a book that deserves serious study and consideration. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.AJack W. Weigel, formerly with Univ. of Michigan Lib., Ann Arbor
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

Richard Feynman once quipped that "Time is what happens when nothing else does." But Julian Barbour disagrees: if nothing happened, if nothing changed, then time would stop. For time is nothing but change. It is change that we perceive occurring all around us, not time. Put simply, time does not exist.
In this highly provocative volume, Barbour presents the basic evidence for a timeless universe, and shows why we still experience the world as intensely temporal. It is a book that strikes at the heart of modern physics. It casts doubt on Einstein's greatest contribution, the spacetime continuum, but also points to the solution of one of the great paradoxes of modern science, the chasm between classical and quantum physics. Indeed, Barbour argues that the holy grail of physicists--the unification of Einstein's general relativity with quantum mechanics--may well spell the end of time.
Barbour writes with remarkable clarity as he ranges from the ancient philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides, through the giants of science Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, to the work of the contemporary physicists John Wheeler, Roger Penrose, and Steven Hawking. Along the way he treats us to enticing glimpses of some of the mysteries of the universe, and presents intriguing ideas about multiple worlds, time travel, immortality, and, above all, the illusion of motion.
The End of Time is a vibrantly written and revolutionary book. It turns our understanding of reality inside-out.

Time Does Not Exist
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 1999 Publication date: 13January 2000

TIME DOES NOT EXIST Independent Physicist, JulianBarbour, Shakes the Foundations of Science With a Controversial New Theory for the Non-Existence of Time

"People have shied away from taking this idea really seriously, maybe because they instinctively feel time is too big a thing. That's perfectly natural. We are confronted by extraordinary dilemmas and puzzles because we're at the frontiers of science. If you go to the edge of the cliff and look over, it can seem frightening and that's just what we're doing." --Julian Barbour

If he is right, then we have a new quantum theory of the universe "which could change our fundamental understanding of the relationship between space and time." --Dr Harvey Brown, philosopher of physics, Oxford

If he is right, then his ideas "have tremendous implications for philosophy and the notion of human beings' place in the world" --Lee Smolin, theoretical physicist, Pennsylvania State University, author of Life of the Cosmos

Could the quest for the Grand Unifying Theory, the marriage of relativity and quantum mechanics, at long last be within our reach? Hawking thinks so. Indeed, there is increasingly strong evidence within the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics that the universe is timeless. Though the laws of physics create a powerful illusion that time is flowing, in fact there are only timeless "Nows." Will this spell the end of physics? Perhaps not, but it very well may spell the "end of time" (i.e. Time would cease to have a role in the foundations of physics). Ludicrous? Perhaps not.

In THE END OF TIME: The Next Revolution in Physics (OUP, January 2000), theoretical physicist, Julian Barbour presents the basic evidence for the nonexistence of time. Taking great pains to explain the nature of time Barbour eloquently illustrates what a timeless universe would look like. The world will nonetheless be experienced as intensely temporal, because, as Barbour notes, nature creates the impression of time.

THE ARGUMENT

* If nothing changed, one could not say time had passed. Change is primary, time is deduced from it.

* But in all existing forms of physics, time is regarded as primary and real. if, as Barbour argues, change is primary, physics must be recast in a timeless form.

* Barbour's new timeless physics retains the deepest insights of Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. It brings to its logical conclusion much important recent work on the unification of these two theories.

* This conclusion is very simple: time does not exist. Both the flow of time and the appearance of motion are illusions.

* The quantum theory of the universe produces this illusion by creating many richly structured configurations of the universe that give an appearance of a flow of time.

* Barbour calls these special configurations time capsules. We experience them directly as instants of time, or "Nows."

* Our subjective feeling that time carries us forward in a relentless flow is therefore ultimately an illusion created by the way in which quantum mechanics produces the specially constructed Nows.

THE END OF TIME is a book that strikes at the heart of modern physics, casts doubt on Einstein's greatest contribution, the space-time continuum, but also points to the solution of one of the great paradoxes of modern science: the chasm between classical and quantum physics. Barbour treats readers to an enticing look at some of the mysteries of the universe and presents intriguing ideas about multiple worlds, time travel, immortality, and, above all, the illusion of motion. What emerges is an elegant theory of time out of timelessness.

Barbour writes with remarkable clarity, as he ranges from ancient philosophers such as Heraclitus and Parmenides, to such giants of science as Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, to the work of contemporary physicists such as Wheeler, Penrose, and Hawking. Turning our understanding of reality inside-out, THE END OF TIME is a revolutionary book sure to spark debate and consternation in the field of physics and with the man on the next barstool.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR As a young physicist while studying Einstein's ideas on space and time, Barbour realized that Einstien had failed to come fully to terms with time. Science, in general, could not explain precisely what time was. It is Barbour's revolutionary theory that time does not exist at all. He set out to study the way time should work in physics - and discovered why it doesn't.

A brilliant post-graduate student, Barbour opted out of a beckoning academic career to pursue his theory, largely by himself, sometimes in collaboration with the Italian physicist Bruno Bertotti. Now 62, he has summarized his work to date with the publication of THE END OF TIME.

Julian Barbour has worked on foundational issues in physics for 35 years. He has made important and original contributions to the theory of time and inertia, on which he is an acknowledged expert, and is the author of Absolute or Relative Motion? (CUP), a much-praised book on the discovery of dynamics. He has contributed to three recent major television documentaries on modern physics that have been shown worldwide. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

Julian Barbour is a theoretical physicist who has worked on foundational issues in physics and astronomy for 35 years. His first book, the widely praised The Discovery of Dynamics, has recently been republished in paperback. In 2000 the Association of American Publishers awarded The End of Time its prestigious award for excellence in the Physics & Astronomy section. Julian Barbour, a theoretical physicist, has worked on foundational issues in physics for 35 years. He is the author of the widely praised Absolute or Relative Motion?: Volume I, and is working on the second volume.