The telephone burst onto the world stage 150 years ago and began to transform every part of life: from business to warfare, from news gathering to sex work. James Gleick shows how this commonplace object irreversibly changed not only the world but who we are as human beings.
What if the future is as real as the past? Physicists have been suggesting as much since Einstein. It’s all just the space-time continuum. “So in the future, the sister of the past,” thinks young Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses, “I may see myself as I sit here now but by reflection from that which then I shall be.” Twisty! What if you received knowledge of your own tragic future—as a gift, or perhaps...
Your favorite time traveler may be missing from my chronicle, Time Travel: A History. I'm sorry about that. Some readers are already pointing out the omissions. Consider the case of Alley Oop.
Let us all—wherever and whenever—live on what the world’s timekeepers call Universal Time, or UTC (though “Earth time” might be less presumptuous). When it’s noon in Greenwich, England, let it be 12:00 everywhere. No more resetting the clocks. No more wondering what time it is in Peoria or Petropavlovsk. No more befuddled headaches crossing the International Dateline from Tuesday back into Monday.
What was the "most characteristic feature of the thought" of the early 20th century?
A mind-bending exploration of time travel—from its origins in literature and science to its influence on our understanding of time itself. The book vividly explores physics, technology, philosophy, and art as each relates to time travel and tells the story of the concept’s cultural evolutions—from H.G. Wells to Doctor Who, from Proust to Woody Allen.