This book offers a clear account of timelessness together with the discussion of temporality in fundamental physics and cosmology. The multi-disciplinary approach to the problem of time and timelessness shows the remarkable difference between pre-relativistic debates and current developments. This book thoroughly discusses notions of timelessness and time emerging in the most recent literature on Quantum Gravity, String Theory and Cosmology. The contributions explore, among many aspects, the historical-philosophical roots of the notions of temporality and atemporality, the role of mathematics in defining time and temporality with respect to both order relations and causality, approaches to quantum gravity and cosmology that make use of quantum fluids and condensate to approximate space–time in general relativity, time and timelessness in black holes and the problem of cosmological time in bouncing cosmologies. The novelty of this volume lies in the interaction among scientists, philosophers, and historians in exploring the nature of time and timelessness and the origin of these concepts. The book represents a valuable toolkit for researchers and graduate students in physics, cosmology, philosophy and the history of those fields.

These three essays by an eminent scientist explore the nature, origin, and development of our concepts of space from the points of view of the senses, history, and physics. They examine the subject from every direction, in a manner suitable for both undergraduates and other readers. 25 figures.1906 edition.

Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin argue for a revolution in our cosmological ideas. Ideal for non-scientists, physicists and cosmologists.

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.

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.

The development of theoretical physics can be seen as a continuous improvement of the models of space and time. In particular, the beginning of the 21st century brought a new vision into quantum physics: quantum particles move in space only, time measured with clocks is merely a numerical order of particles' motion. This so called "a-temporal" view of physics offers a radically new understanding of the micro and macro universe. On the basis of the notion of time as numerical order of material change, in this book the authors introduce suggestive unitary and holistic perspectives in the interpretation and explanation of several physical phenomena of contemporary physics. It is shown that the concept of time as a mathematical quantity measuring the numerical order of material changes resolves Zeno problems on motion, hypothetical travel into past, twin paradox of special relativity and allow new perspectives to be opened in the interpretation and explanation of Einstein-Podolski-Rosen experiment and of non-local correlations between subatomic particles. Moreover, a timeless description of the gravitational interaction and the idea of a timeless three-dimensional quantum vacuum as a fundamental bridge between gravity and quantum behaviour of matter are developed. Finally, in the second part of the book, after analysing the fundamental features of some relevant unitary theories of contemporary physics (such as superstring theory and loop quantum gravity) and making some considerations about being versus becoming and atomism versus monism in modelling physical reality at a fundamental level, it is shown that the replacement of the concept of time with the numerical order of material change provides a new suggestive interpretation of the fundamental unitary field theories opening the doors to a real "timeless theory of everything". The use of a simple and fluid language makes the book accessible to a wide reading public.