Description
| Summary: | While it seems manifest in our experience that time flows - from the past to the present moment and into the future, there are a number of philosophical and physical objections to this commonsense view of dynamic time. In the quest to make sense of this conundrum philosophers and physicists confront fascinating and irresistible questions such as: Can effects precede causes? Can one travel in time? Can the expansion of the universe or the process of measurement in quantum mechanics provide a direction of time? In this book eleven eminent scholars, standing at the boundary between physics and philosophy, attempt to answer these questions in an entertaining yet rigorous way. For example, William Unruh's chapter is one of the first non-technical essays by this important cosmologist and Huw Price discusses critically the exciting cosmological views of Hawking and Penrose. Philip Stamp and Anthony Leggett discuss macroscopic quantum phenomena, a subject which has not been discussed much outside the specialist literature. John Earman's paper on time travel is likely to become one of the landmarks in the literature. The book will be enjoyed by anyone of a speculative turn of mind fascinated by the puzzles of time.
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| Item Description: | Chiefly proceedings of the 'Time's Arrows Today' Conference, held in June 1992 at the University of British Columbia. |
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| Physical Description: | xiii, 330 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm |
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| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-324) and index. |
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| ISBN: | 0521461111
9780521461115
9780521599450
0521599458 |
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