Book Description

Tempus Fugit: Time Flies examines time as both natural phenomenon and cultural construct, as manifested in works of art dating from 900 BCE to the present. Essays by 23 scholars explore the relativity of time.

One section of the book looks closely at time as a dominant concern in 20th-century art. From Einsteinian space-time, Bergsonian subjective duration, and Freudian non-linear dreamtime, with their respective impacts upon art of the early century, to late-century involvements with critical theory and time-based art (performance, video, and electronic intermedia), this century's reinvention of time and altered notions of history are considered.

A second section explores the meanings of time embodied in works of art from 12 world cultures. Assyrian eternal time, Medieval European apocalyptic time, Indian cosmic, cyclical time, African ancestral time, Native American episodic temporality, and the complex calendrics of the Maya are among the subjects explored. The final section addresses time from the perspective of those charged with rescuing and protecting works of art from the ravages of time: art conservators. Both the creative time of the artist and the patina of time acquired by the art object are documented. ... Read more

Book Description

This key work by Paul Virilio is a critical inquiry into the relations of space, time, and technology.

Polar Inertia examines how the `here and now' of space, territory and the body, are being redefined by new technologies and shows how this redefinition undoes simplistic versions of the globalization thesis. In a typically pyrotechnic overview - that considers Venetian gondolas and NASA technology, the Lumi[gr]ere cinema and particle accelerators - Virilio shows how technology has made inertia the defining condition of modernity. The principal argument of Polar Inertia is that the real time of `action at a distance' - telecommunication - has replaced the real space of immediate action. An instantaneous present has been substituted for space and the sovereignty of territory; everything happens without the need to go anywhere.

Illustrated with discussion of optics, `vision machines', the body and its vehicles, surveillance and control, this book will be a key reference for students and scholars of the latest thinking in social theory.

Book Description

The issue of space has perhaps been over-emphasised and it is essential that processes of everyday existence, such as globalisation and environmental issues and also notions such as gender, race and ethnicity, are looked at with a balanced time-space analysis.This work undermines the old certainties of time and space by arguing that these dimensions to not exist singly, but only as a hybrid process term. ... Read more

Book Description

In QUO VADIS (Latin for "where are you going?"), the author uses a narrative approach, inviting readers to walk with him down a trail that leads to a wholly different vision of their place in the universe. The trail begins with a radically different solution to what a British physicist calls "one of the greatest sources of mystery to mankind." Once the mystery is solved and its implications recognized, millions of people in all walks of life will be ready to reject the nihilistic worldviews shaped in the past century by what Einstein, in his old age, called the dehumanizing "scientific and technical mentality." Then the people can give a bold, confident answer to the quo vadis question addressed to all of humanity in the new millennium. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

"Quo Vadis" is a Gem
Robert J. Williams has written a gem of a book in "Quo Vadis" which even I--a scientific lay person if ever there was one--could understand. Williams blends his talents as a writer with his training as a scientist to produce a compelling argument that Einstein's universally accepted "welding" of time and space needed to "prove" his theory of relativity was sophistry. Recent discoveries in astrophysics tend to bear him out. "Quo Vadis" is written in a simple, elegant style that almost everyone will find compelling. The Dean of the College of Letters and Science at UCLA finally agreed to waive its science requirement so I could graduate 30 years ago. If I enjoyed this book, you will too. ... Read more

Book Description

Astronomers and mathematicians, archaeologist and churchmen, have contributed to our knowledge of the many calendars by which man has measured time. But this is the first book that surveys the development and significance of the calendar as a whole. The author discloses the origins of the calendar from times of remotest antiquity and among peoples of every race. Contents: Background of Calendar History; Chronological Succession; The Broader Horizon; Human Yardstick; The Future. ... Read more

Book Description

An inventive and funny investigation into the fictional life of Rosalind Brodsky, a delusional time traveler who believes herself to be working at the Institute of Militronics and Advanced Interventionality in the 21st century. The book and accompanying interactive CD-ROM chart Brodsky's journey and provide access into her diary, in which she records the insights of Freud, Jung, Klein, Lacan and Kristeva - all of whom happen to have been her therapists. A splendid work of imagination. Dimension: 6 x 6 inches, 111 color reproductions. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The Best CD Rom I've ever seen
If you like Doctor Who, Delia Smith, Bill and Ted and Glam Rock, you'll love this book and CD Rom. There's music, cookery and psychoanalysis, with fantastic costume changes by Rosalind. Find your way through the Institute and enjoy the awkwardly lethargic rock-speak of Rosalind the Megastar and browse through her collection of celebrity vibrators.

Buy it and try it. It is brilliant ... Read more

Book Description

The essays in this topical volume inquire into one of the most fundamental issues of philosophy and of the cognitive and natural sciences: the riddle of time. The central feature is the tension between the experience and the conceptualization of time, reflecting an apparently unavoidable antinomy of subjective first-person accounts and objective traditional science. Is time based in the physics of inanimate matter, or does it originate in the operation of our minds? Is it essential for the constitution of reality, or is it just an illusion? Issues of time, temporality, and nowness are paradigms for interdisciplinary work in many contemporary fields of research. The authors of this volume discuss profoundly the mutual relationships and inspiring perspectives. They address a general audience. ... Read more

Book Description

A fascinating examination of the possibility of time travel and the scientific breakthrough that may make it happen. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

HOPE TO TIME-TRAVEL is far more exciting
Cosmic Time Travel : A Scientific Odyssey by Barry R. Parker is a serious search for how time-travel might be possible. However it's nowhere near the standard of HOPE TO TIME-TRAVEL:My Honest Wish by Paul Curran. HOPE TO TIME-TRAVEL presents a more convincing argument that time-travel to the past is probably possible. Cosmic Time Travel should be released in a new edition to make it more like (410 A5 Pgs) HOPE TO TIME-TRAVEL. I really enjoy time-travel and Cosmic Time Travel is the second best book I've read on the subject, HOPE TO TIME-TRAVEL is the best!

For people who like to THINK
Virtually everyone has been exposed to ideas of time travel, although these ideas are usually purely fictitious (e.g. Back to the Future, The Time Machine). It is a topic most people have pondered, though few investigate the science behind it. Anyone interested by fantasies of time travel will be even more interested to learn that modern physics does not exclude the possibility of it. Cosmic Time Travel describes current scientific theories of time in easily "understood" terms. (The word understand is used loosely; certainly no one fully understands the nature of space-time!) This book is easily accessible even to people with no background in physics. The concepts of Cosmic Time Travel are very interesting and thought-provoking, but I should mention that, although Relativity has been experimentally verified, applications for time travel are speculative. (In other words, no get too excited about the prospect of time travel yet.) Even if wormholes and exotic matter (you'll find out when you read this...) would serve the purpose, current technology is no where near being capable to produce such a device. Parker concludes that hope for time travel rests in super-civilizations in a far greater stage of development than our own. (He seems moderately confident of their existence, although I myself find it highly doubtful.) Still, time is a fascinating concept, and this book is wonderful if you are looking for something to exercise your brain. If you find physics interesting, you'd probably like this book. If you don't find physics interesting, you probably would after reading this book. Of course, there are other books on this topic besides Cosmic. Black Holes and Time Warps contains basically the same information, also well explained, and is really a better deal. ... Read more

Book Description

It is not easy to discover how ancient peoples told time, and it is extremely difficult to translate one calendar date to another. Parise provides tables that convert dates from sixty calendars, ancient and modern, to the Julian and Gregorian Calendars. ... Read more

Book Description

Time is considered as an independent entity which cannot be reduced to the concept of matter, space or field. The point of discussion is the "time flow" conception of N A Kozyrev (1908-1983), an outstanding Russian astronomer and natural scientist. In addition to a review of the experimental studies of "the active properties of time", by both Kozyrev and modern scientists, the reader will find different interpretations of Kozyrev's views and some developments of his ideas in the fields of geophysics, astrophysics, general relativity and theoretical mechanics. ... Read more

Book Description

Biological Time presents an extraordinary hypothesis about how plants and animals are timed and the knowledge of this phenomenon by prehistoric, ancient and indigenous people. The work is supported with archeological evidence and a wide range of examples from salmon, deer, and geese to grapes.

Biological Time is for the naturalist, outdoors person, scientist and all those who wonder what clocks nature follows.

Highlights from the book are as follows:

- The works of art in the cave at Lascaux, France, dating back to 17,000 years ago, were solar-lunar calendars that aided Ice-Age men in knowing when and where to hunt large mammals.

- Ancient Mesopotamian calendars and religious rituals were used to time the opportune periods to harvest a wide range of plants and animals.

- The solar-lunar calendars and ceremonies of indigenous people on the Northwest Coast of North America and in the South Pacific Islands were primarily designed to gauge when fish are most easily harvested. ... Read more

Book Description

With all that we know about the universe, why are there so many questions that we cannot answer?

If time is a dimension, then why can we not travel in it as we can in space?

Why can no physical reason be found for why the speed of light is what it is? Why, as Einstein told us, is it absolutely constant and is the maximum possible velocity? Why would the speed of light affect the mass of an object and the passage of time? Einstein told us the way the universe operates but did not tell us why.

What about matter? Why is there not just empty space? Matter revolves around two electric charges in the universe but why is there two charges and from where do they originate?

As it turns out, there is a simple model of the universe that answers all of these questions. This model also reveals that the way we perceive the universe is not only because of what it is, but because of what we are. ... Read more

Book Description

In their most refined form, pendulum clocks keep astonishingly accurate time and are sensitive to the ebb and flow of the tide and even the quivering of the Earth itself.Great inventors such as Galileo, Huygens, and Kelvin devised mechanisms to maintain their even oscillations. Lesser known horologists such as John Harrison, Lord Grimthorpe, and William Shortt, also contributed greatly to the science of time-keeping.By reflecting on his own inventions and achievements, author Philip Woodward gives a highly readable and fascinating history of precision horology before the advent of atomic clocks and the quartz chip that will educate and entertain amateur horologists and scientists and engineers alike. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Inspiring - Real Insights into Horology
Philip Woodward takes the reader through both his thinking process and his mechanical trials to design and build the perfect clock.

A must read for every horologist. Writen lije a novel, but containing the information of a first r5ate textbook on horological science.

A gem
This is the story of a quest to build a perfect clock (he does come pretty close). It offers a rare glimpse into the private process of creative design. ... Read more

Book Description

Informed by the philosophy of the virtual, Keith Ansell Pearson offers up one of the most lucid and original works on the central philosophical questions.He asks that if our basic concepts on what it means to be human are wrong then, what is this to mean for our ideas of time, being, consciousness?A critical examination ensues, one informed by a multitude of responses to a large number of philosophers.Under discussion is the mathematical limits as found in Russell, questions on Relativity, Kant's notion of judgement, Popper, Dennett, Dawkins and Proust.He brings into the rapport the concepts of Bergson and their explosive insights into the idea of time. ... Read more