The Janus Point
A New Theory of Time
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
What is time? The Janus Point offers a ground-breaking solution to one of the greatest mysteries in physics.
For over a century, the greatest minds have sought to understand why time seems to flow in one direction, ever forward. In The Janus Point, Julian Barbour offers a radically new answer: it doesn't.
At the heart of this book, Barbour provides a new vision of the Big Bang - the Janus Point - from which time flows in two directions, its currents driven by the expansion of the universe and the growth of order in the galaxies, planets and life itself. What emerges is not just a revolutionary new theory of time, but a hopeful argument about the destiny of our universe.
'Both a work of literature and a masterpiece of scientific thought' Lee Smolin, author of The Trouble with Physics
'Profound...original...accessible to anyone who has pondered the mysteries of space and time' Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal
'Takes on fundamental questions, offering a new perspective on how the Universe started and where it may be headed' Science Magazine
Customer Reviews
Time is on my side
Author
British physicist, who has never held an academic position since obtaining his PhD from the University of Cologne in 1968, supporting himself as a translator and science communicator instead. His major areas of research are quantum gravity (who could resist?) and the history of science. Best known for his 1999 book The End of Time, his hero (science-wise) is Ernst Mach (after whom the sound barrier is named). He's also a big fan of Shakespeare (and H G Wells, one suspects).
Summary
Basically, Prof B thinks time is misunderstood. Everyone sees it progressing relentlessly in one direction, which is what makes plastic surgery so popular. However, the laws of physics all operate equally well in either direction, so why not time? Specifically, the prevailing cosmological wisdom requires ‘special conditions’ for the universe at the moment of the Big Bang to account for the fact that everything keeps expanding. What if another universe we don't know about headed off in the opposite direction time-wise after the Bang? Just sayin'. Apparently, this misconception is all, or partly, due to a related mistake in the application of the second law of thermodynamics, which thanks to the good professor, I now see clearly. Not.
Writing
The thing about polymaths is that they have their heads around lots of stuff, which allows them to draw all sorts of elegant connections between science, literature, philosophy, religion, and myth. Whether that is a good thing is moot.
Bottom line
If you're not already familiar with phase space, shape spaces, minimal model, root-mean-square lengths, Poincaré recurrence, the Boltzmann whatever, Abelian gauge theory, the N-body problem, Kepler pairs, and invariant variations (isn't that a song by Trent Reznor?), then this might not be the book for you.
Footnote
I read one review that said "Barbour encourages the reader to think outside the box." The one containing Schrödinger's cat, perhaps?