Have you ever wondered how the space and time of our everyday lives works - and why? David Pearcey is here to help, with A Holistic Story of Space and Time, a thorough exploration through our world of space and time. Explaining how space and time works as a complete system, the book is helped by brief accounts of the contributions of some of the great scientists and philosophers who helped us understand its components. Intended for the general reader who has no previous technical understanding, A Holistic Story of Space and Time delves into several areas - the types of geometries of space, the motion of matter in space, and how the force fields of matter pervade space, as well as how we perceive space and time by treating the brain as an information management system. It shows how the process of perception allows us to determine the true nature of the geometry of the space and time of the real world. Much more is also looked into in detail such as Einstein's special and general theories of relativity including his unified field theory, electromagnetism, and quantum physics, including charts and diagrams to explain some of the concepts involved. The final part of the book investigates the relationship between us who perceive the real world and the space and time of the real world, using the ideas developed by the philosophers Kant and Schopenhauer. This all combines to give the reader a uniquely broad look into our world and explains how it works as a total entity, from the cosmic world of the curved geometry of general relativity to the mysterious quantum world and then the philosophical aspects of how we are part of it. Anyone with an interest in the way things work will be well-suited to this extraordinary book that answers the why as well as the what and how.

Can architecture help us find our place and way in today's complex world? Can it return individuals to a whole, to a world, to a community? Developing Giedion's claim that contemporary architecture's main task is to interpret a way of life valid for our time, philosopher Karsten Harries answers that architecture should serve a common ethos. But if architecture is to meet that task, it first has to free itself from the dominant formalist approach, and get beyond the notion that its purpose is to produce endless variations of the decorated shed. In a series of cogent and balanced arguments, Harries questions the premises on which architects and theorists have long relied—premises which have contributed to architecture's current identity crisis and marginalization. He first criticizes the aesthetic approach, focusing on the problems of decoration and ornament. He then turns to the language of architecture. If the main task of architecture is indeed interpretation, in just what sense can it be said to speak, and what should it be speaking about? Expanding upon suggestions made by Martin Heidegger, Harries also considers the relationship of building to the idea and meaning of dwelling. Architecture, Harries observes, has a responsibility to community; but its ethical function is inevitably also political. He concludes by examining these seemingly paradoxical functions.