About Time: Cosmology, Time and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang

About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang by Adam Frank"About Time" is the interesting book about time, both cosmic and human and how they relate to each other. Astrophysicist Adam Frank takes us on a journey of the human quest to find out what happened at that very moment of creation at the beginning of the Big Bang. He provides us with an understanding of how we got to the Big Bang and a provocative look at how cosmology has evolved and the looming alternatives. This 432-page book is composed of the following twelve chapters: 1. Talking Sky, Working Stone and Living Field, 2. The City, the Cycle and the Epicycle, 3. The Clock, the Bell Tower and the Spheres of God, 4. Cosmic Machines, Illuminated Night and the Factory Clock, 5. The Telegraph, the Electric Clock and the Block Universe, 6. The Expanding Universe, Radio Hours and Washing Machine Time, 7. The Big Bang and a New Armageddon, 8. Inflation, Cell Phones and the Outlook Universe, 9. Wheels Within Wheels: Cyclic Universes and the Challenge of Quantum Gravity, 10. Ever-Changing Eternities: The Promise and Perils of a Multiverse, 11. Giving Up the Ghost: The End of Beginning and the End of Time, and 12. In the Fields of Learning Grass.Positives:1. Fantastic book for the laymen. Complex themes that is accessible to the masses.2. Fascinating topic of cosmology in the hands of an educator.3. Excellent format. The author introduces each chapter with an amusing vignette and proceeds to his narration.4. Elegant prose that at times makes you forget that you are reading a science book about cosmology. Science writing at its best.5. Great use of charts and illustrations.6. The author was fair and even handed. Very respectful and professional tone.7. The holy grail of physics.8. This whole book revolves around our conception of time and how it relates to the cosmos. A historical look at time and how the concept has evolved.9. An interesting look at inventions over time and how it impacted our lives. The great inventors behind them.10. How myths relate to the cosmos.11. The most critical result of urban revolution.12. How calendars and explicit divisions of the day emerged and how it evolved.13. The wonderful history of Greece and how it is pivotal in the interlocking narratives of human and cosmic time. Great stuff.14. Great tidbits of knowledge throughout. As an example, find out what book became the astronomy standard textbook for more than a millennium.15. The difference between creation myths and no-creations myths.16. The key five cosmological questions.17. How cosmological thinking was limited by the Church.18. The invention of the clock.19. How Galileo confirmed the Copernican model.20. The great Isaac Newton.21. How transoceanic commerce drove the need to precision...latitude and longitude.22. A practical look at thermodynamics.23. The ever-fascinating Albert Einstein. Where he was right and where he was wrong.24. The transformation of cosmology from a quasi-philosophical speculation to one grounded on science.25. The great discovery from Hubble and Humason.26. Quantum mechanics...I keep learning more and more.27. The history of the Big Bang cosmology. The three unassailable pillars of evidence. Excellent!28. The inception of NASA. Communication satellites.29. A fascinating look at the early universe.30. How technology impacted our lives: email, computers, appliances, tech gadgets (GPS), etc...31. Dark matter and dark energy.32. A great accessible discussion of the various alternative explanations for the question of "before" the Big Bang: brane-world cosmologies, eternal inflation, multiverses, string theory landscapes, loop quantum cosmologies. The strength of this book.33. Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)...enlighten me.34. The Anthropic Principle and why it drives scientists.35. This author does not hesitate to present radical ideas and lets us know what the scientific community feels about it. Many examples.36. The radical concepts of time.37. Quantum cosmology.38. Links and excellent bibliography.Negatives:1. A chart summarizing the various cosmological theories would have added much value. The main scientists behind them and findings that either confirm or contradict the cosmology in question.2. This is a very ambitious book that covers many topics of interest and in doing so of course will treat some topics with more rigor than others.3. The author does a wonderful job of making such complex topics accessible but might disappoint those expecting a more in depth analysis.4. I would have liked a little more conviction or perhaps a clearer explanation of where the consensus of the scientific community currently is. Is there a difference among the science fields? Perhaps I missed that but I think the author could have at least tied a bow of where we stand today regardless of all the various attempts to explain the "before" of the Big Bang.In summary, this is an excellent book for all us cosmologists-want- a-be who want to learn more about our universe without being blown away by the complexity of it. Astrophysicist Adam Frank does a great job of educating the reader while skillfully moving the narration forward. A journey that interweaves its way proficiently through time as it relates to the cosmos. A well written science book that is worthy of your time!

I have to agree with Lyle Crawford's review. I was quite disappointed by the book. Frank ends up focusing on cosmology in general just as much as on time and conceptions of time, and honestly, he's better on cosmology. When talking about culture, he not only seems not particularly well-informed (like someone who's only read the other popular books on the subject), but he also doesn't even sound that interested, as though he wanted to write a book just on his own work but was pressed into adding some "human interest" material.Though Frank promises a look at the history of conceptions of time, he ends up repeating a lot of single-source opinions as fact (the prehistoric anthropology section at the beginning of the book is especially weak this way), and on the facts themselves, he doesn't seem to have made too much of an effort to get familiar with the sources. Since the job of a popularizer is to know the subject in and out and just tell you the best bits, this doesn't give me much faith in his skills.I know a fair bit about the early modern period, and Frank treats Kepler before he treats Galileo, calling Galileo the final step in the Copernican revolution. In fact, Kepler and Galileo were contemporaries, and Kepler was rather a fan of the far more famous Galileo. Galileo rejected Kepler's ellipses (or else didn't even pay attention to them), and Kepler's three laws wouldn't take hold until after Kepler's death. Moreover, Frank seems to think it's odd that Kepler didn't entertain the idea of an infinite cosmos--but in those pre-Newton days, the intellectual infrastructure was a mess. It's amazing that those people got *anything* right.Frank also seems to think that Copernicus was anomalous because his theory was based on aesthetics rather than on measurable improvements on the existing model. The entire 20th century history/philosophy of science--from Koyre to Popper to Kuhn and beyond--has established that Copernicus' theoretical revolution is far more the rule than the exception. Major shifts in science aren't made through careful observation and induction, but by creative thinking, chance accidents, and a slow and messy process of reconciliation and evaluation. But Frank's flippant remarks seem just to indicate a lack of interest on his part.There's still good info in the book, but I'm afraid that for the historical material, one would be better served by John North's  Cosmos: An Illustrated History of Astronomy and Cosmology  for a much more informed look at what Frank teaches. For the contemporary stuff, the usual suspects like Brian Greene apply.

Adam Frank created little treasure, comparable to  Coming of Age in the Milky Way ! His book is soo much approachable and pleasant, it may be read by high school students, seniors and anybody in between.This is history of us, humans, our evolution in science and culture. Cosmology is a large part, but we learn about applied science as well, how it evolved with or without religious influences. Author presents, without tedious details, importance and concepts of the TIME and its measurement (yes, not long time ago people did not know what is a wristwatch !), starting from the 15 0000 years old bone having distinct pattern of engravings recording lunar cycles, to Steinhardt/Turok and Linde/Vilenkin speculations about endless or eternal Universe. First time I have learned about calculated proposition, or rather 'timeless' modification of the Vilenkin's eternal inflation. This modification (worked out in 2004 by Sean Carroll and Jennifer Chen)solves in certain way 'arrow of time' dilemma. Where physics ends and metaphysics enters? - author presents few scientists,'thinkers outside the box' and how they approach existence (or not) of time - very interesting final part of the book. Ascent of applied science is not omitted, this makes the book even more interesting: industrial revolution resulting in home appliances, railroads, telegraph -radio, nuclear era, birth of computer and e-communication.."the enigmatic entanglement between cosmic and social time...space and time redefined by machines". I have read many good books about history of science/cosmology..they are usually demanding and require some rest. This one will not tire anybody...take my word for it.

I have long been fascinated by time. Why does time's arrow appear to flow in only one direction? Why is it that our experience of time can vary depending on what particular sort of experience we are undergoing?Adam Frank offers a story in two parts. The early chapters of his book are about the links between culture and time. His remarks on this theme range from the dawn of pre-history (the beginning of time?) through the development of human interest in various cycles of time: the day, the month, the year, and so on. As the accuracy of scientific observations increases so there is a shift in human perceptions of time. As the present time we (in the developed world) are captives to a time-world whose granularity is very tiny; our smart phones and GPS receivers drive us to divide time into ever smaller intervals. This exposition of time as a cultural artefact is excellent.But with the researches of Einstein we have been taught that things are not quite as simple as we imagined. Time, space and velocity interact in ways that challenge our facile preconceptions. Even as Einstein's results were finding their way into the scientific mainstream, other researchers were probing even deeper imponderables: was there a beginning of time? Is time linear or circular? Can it even go backwards???So the book shades into its mind-blowing second half, as Frank guides his readers through a bewildering collection of theories about time and its beginnings (or not) and the possibilities of multiple universes. One wonders: where is William of Occam when you need him?So it is that some cosmologists have become disenchanted with the increasingly weird speculations about time and space and try to draw the scientific community back to evidence-based reasoning.It is not to be wondered at that Adam Frank's book claims no right to reach firm conclusions. That is the state of play as the moment. As an exposition of the scientific approach to knowledge and truth this is a very stimulating book. Science has its skeptics and its devotees. Both would be well advised to read this book and pay heed to its remarks about how science proceeds.I read the Kindle edition of the book, and did quite a lot of highlighting. There are many notes and references at the end of the book, so anyone who gets really hooked can easily discover where to go next. How many lifetimes have you got?

It's a curious book: unique in starting the narrative far back in history, and working gradually forward (more or less chronologically) through Egyptians, dark ages, the one-handed clock era, two-handed clock era, the life effects on humans of a changing understanding of time; right through to the modern theories of time in the cosmos. Even as an avid reader of cosmology books, some things were new and fascinating to me; while some things I've read elsewhere became clearer or gave new insight.Time is abundant in this book. It's the primary subject, of course, but also its strength and its weakness. On the positive side, Adam Frank takes the time other authors cannot afford to give lots more detail. For example, I've often heard that Lamaître was the Belgian Priest who first theorised the big bang, and about Gamow's work in nuclear physics. But this book told the story of how the Big Bang concept was almost separately theorised three times and fell out of favour; about weaknesses of Lamaître's concept; about the Alpher and Gamow paper about the Big Bang to which Gamow spuriously added the name of the Nobel laureate Hans Bethe as a joke to make the paper's authors sound like "Alpha, Beta and Gamma"; that all three scientists had eventually left theoretical physics in some disillusionment, and that Gamow had written "Mr Tompkins" books about a guy falling asleep during lectures of famous physicists and having dreams which explained the principles of their work. This kind of fascinating detail runs through the book, and it's great!On the other hand, the author takes regular time-outs from his factual account, to relate bizarre stories which seem so tangential, it's like somebody switching TV channels without warning. These asides most often come at the beginning of the chapter, and in the paper publication they're helpfully printed in italic which allows the accustomed reader to skip them. Listeners to the audio-book version are out of luck, and must just try to be patient until normal service resumes.So in summary, I think it's a really good read; but it should be a slightly better and 25% shorter read, to make it an excellent book. In fact, I've persuaded myself while writing this review that the book is nearer 4* quality than my original intention of a 3* rating.

It is high time that we got an excellent book that examines all the nooks and crannies of the numerous and confusing theories relating to the passage of time. And this is just that excellent book. I thoroughly enjoyed the ease with which Frank explains this complex, yet very personal subject. And I intend finding the time to read this book again. Thoroughly recommend

This book contains many interesting aspects of time and what it means to us. Sometimes the language is a bit stuffy but I guess that I will be digging into it for may years to come.

Very heavy reading