The Nature of Time

The Nature of Time

Author: Ulrich Meyer

Publisher:

Published: 2013-07-25

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 0199599335

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This book presents a 'modal' account that emphasizes the similarities between times and the possible worlds in modal logic instead of a 'spatial' account of time that treats instants like positions in space.


The Order of Time

The Order of Time

Author: Carlo Rovelli

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2019-12-10

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0735216118

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One of TIME’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade "Meet the new Stephen Hawking . . . The Order of Time is a dazzling book." --The Sunday Times From the bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Reality Is Not What It Seems, Helgoland, and Anaximander comes a concise, elegant exploration of time. Why do we remember the past and not the future? What does it mean for time to "flow"? Do we exist in time or does time exist in us? In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most readers this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it remains. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where at the most fundamental level time disappears. He explains how the theory of quantum gravity attempts to understand and give meaning to the resulting extreme landscape of this timeless world. Weaving together ideas from philosophy, science and literature, he suggests that our perception of the flow of time depends on our perspective, better understood starting from the structure of our brain and emotions than from the physical universe. Already a bestseller in Italy, and written with the poetic vitality that made Seven Brief Lessons on Physics so appealing, The Order of Time offers a profoundly intelligent, culturally rich, novel appreciation of the mysteries of time.


Time of Nature and the Nature of Time

Time of Nature and the Nature of Time

Author: Christophe Bouton

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-05-30

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 3319537253

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This volume addresses the question of time from the perspective of the time of nature. Its aim is to provide some insights about the nature of time on the basis of the different uses of the concept of time in natural sciences. Presenting a dialogue between philosophy and science, it features a collection of papers that investigate the representation, modeling and understanding of time as they appear in physics, biology, geology and paleontology. It asks questions such as: whether or not the notions of time in the various sciences are reducible to the same physical time, what status should be given to timescale differences, or what are the specific epistemic issues raised by past facts in natural sciences. The book first explores the experience of time and its relation to time in nature in a set of chapters that bring together what human experience and physics enable metaphysicians, logicians and scientists to say about time. Next, it studies time in physics, including some puzzling paradoxes about time raised by the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. The volume then goes on to examine the distinctive problems and conceptions of time in the life sciences. It explores the concept of deep time in paleontology and geology, time in the epistemology of evolutionary biology, and time in developmental biology. Each scientific discipline features a specific approach to time and uses distinctive methodologies for implementing time in its models. This volume seeks to define a common language to conceive of the distinct ways different scientific disciplines view time. In the process, it offers a new approach to the issue of time that will appeal to a wide range of readers: philosophers and historians of science, metaphysicians and natural scientists - be they scholars, advanced students or readers from an educated general audience.


What is Time?

What is Time?

Author: G. J. Whitrow

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780198607816

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In this engaging volume, Professor G. J. Whitrow (1912-2000) takes us on a good-humored and wide-ranging tour of the thing that clocks keep (more or less). He discusses how our ideas of time originated, and coaxes the layment to contemplate with pleasure the differences between cyclic, linear, biological, cosmic, and space-time, while providing frequent diversions into fascinating topics such as the Mayan calendar, the migration of birds, and the dances of bees. This reissue of the classic and authoritative What is Time? includes a new introduction by Dr J. T. Fraser, founder of the International Society for the Study of Time, and a bibliographic essay by Dr Fraser and Professor M. P. Soulsby of the Pennsylvania State University.


God, Eternity and the Nature of Time

God, Eternity and the Nature of Time

Author: Alan Padgett

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2000-06-16

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 1725205327

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This book focuses on the timelessness of God, providing a detailed analysis of the nature of time and eternity. Padgett offers a biblical and historical survey of the doctrine of eternity, rejecting both theories of eternity being both 'timeless' and 'everlasting'. Padgett argues that traditionally the doctrine of absolute divine timelessness is not compatible with God's actions in the world. "God is in some sense temporal, yet He is the ground of time, the Lord of time and is 'relatively' timeless.


Nature through Time

Nature through Time

Author: Edoardo Martinetto

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-07-27

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 3030350584

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This book simulates a historical walk through nature, teaching readers about the biodiversity on Earth in various eras with a focus on past terrestrial environments. Geared towards a student audience, using simple terms and avoiding long complex explanations, the book discusses the plants and animals that lived on land, the evolution of natural systems, and how these biological systems changed over time in geological and paleontological contexts. With easy-to-understand and scientifically accurate and up-to-date information, readers will be guided through major biological events from the Earth's past. The topics in the book represent a broad paleoenvironmental spectrum of interests and educational modules, allowing for virtual visits to rich geological times. Eras and events that are discussed include, but are not limited to, the much varied Quaternary environments, the evolution of plants and animals during the Cenozoic, the rise of angiosperms, vertebrate evolution and ecosystems in the Mesozoic, the Permian mass extinction, the late Paleozoic glaciation, and the origin of the first trees and land plants in the Devonian-Ordovician. With state-of-the art expert scientific instruction on these topics and up-to-date and scientifically accurate illustrations, this book can serve as an international course for students, teachers, and other interested individuals.


Time Travel

Time Travel

Author: James Gleick

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 080416892X

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Best Books of 2016 BOSTON GLOBE * THE ATLANTIC From the acclaimed bestselling author of The Information and Chaos comes this enthralling history of time travel—a concept that has preoccupied physicists and storytellers over the course of the last century. James Gleick delivers a mind-bending exploration of time travel—from its origins in literature and science to its influence on our understanding of time itself. Gleick vividly explores physics, technology, philosophy, and art as each relates to time travel and tells the story of the concept's cultural evolutions—from H.G. Wells to Doctor Who, from Proust to Woody Allen. He takes a close look at the porous boundary between science fiction and modern physics, and, finally, delves into what it all means in our own moment in time—the world of the instantaneous, with its all-consuming present and vanishing future.


Time Travels

Time Travels

Author: Elizabeth Grosz

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2005-06-22

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 0822386550

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Recently the distinguished feminist theorist Elizabeth Grosz has turned her critical acumen toward rethinking time and duration. Time Travels brings her trailblazing essays together to show how reconceptualizing temporality transforms and revitalizes key scholarly and political projects. In these essays, Grosz demonstrates how imagining different relations between the past, present, and future alters understandings of social and scientific projects ranging from theories of justice to evolutionary biology, and she explores the radical implications of the reordering of these projects for feminist, queer, and critical race theories. Grosz’s reflections on how rethinking time might generate new understandings of nature, culture, subjectivity, and politics are wide ranging. She moves from a compelling argument that Charles Darwin’s notion of biological and cultural evolution can potentially benefit feminist, queer, and antiracist agendas to an exploration of modern jurisprudence’s reliance on the notion that justice is only immanent in the future and thus is always beyond reach. She examines Henri Bergson’s philosophy of duration in light of the writings of Gilles Deleuze, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and William James, and she discusses issues of sexual difference, identity, pleasure, and desire in relation to the thought of Deleuze, Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, and Luce Irigaray. Together these essays demonstrate the broad scope and applicability of Grosz’s thinking about time as an undertheorized but uniquely productive force.


The End of Certainty

The End of Certainty

Author: Ilya Prigogine

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 1997-08-17

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0684837056

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Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine discusses the irreversibility of time and his findings impact on the laws of physics.