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A review by robinwalter
A Brief History of Timekeeping: The Science of Marking Time, from Stonehenge to Atomic Clocks by Chad Orzel
challenging
informative
medium-paced
4.25
This was a VERY challenging read for someone whose grasp of maths and physics is shakier than a leaf in a hurricane, but it was a rewarding read for that very reason. I love being challenged and having both my neurons taxed to the max, and this book did that in spades. The core tenet, repeated often and well-defended throughout, makes a lot of sense - that time (and especially timeKEEPING) is primarily a social construct.
The science in the book was a real stretch, and made me feel sympathy for the author. Trying to convey the gist of fundamental physics in lay terms without dumbing it down nonsensically must be fiendishly difficult. So the last half of the book especially was very much more "Sci" than "pop". Even so, by reading at a crawl I was left feeling that I had at least a vague, nebulous grasp of the concepts being outlined, and given my lack of intellectual resources, that is a huge accomplishment for the author.
One thing I very much enjoyed in this book was a look at the "Longitude" issue from a different perspective. I found the famous bestseller about Harrison to be interminably dull and badly written, so reading a concise challenge to some of its core assertions and editorialising made me smile.
I also found some of the heaviest chapters on relativity and quantum physics marginally less incomprehensible thanks to having read Walter Isaacson's biography of Einstein. From the history of the discover of light-speed to the development of modern quantum physics, having the same concepts and players referenced again in a different context felt like getting a few pieces of a sprawling jigsaw puzzle together.
In summary, I highly recommend this as an incredibly interesting and well-argued presentation that taught me a lot. It is a popsci book that was very heavily on the 'sci' end on the spectrum but presented with as much deference to 'pop' as possible. With one glaring and inexplicable exception. NOT ONCE in the book was any reference made to the best ever pop-sci summary of time, from another Doctor Who knew the subject well:
""People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff."
The science in the book was a real stretch, and made me feel sympathy for the author. Trying to convey the gist of fundamental physics in lay terms without dumbing it down nonsensically must be fiendishly difficult. So the last half of the book especially was very much more "Sci" than "pop". Even so, by reading at a crawl I was left feeling that I had at least a vague, nebulous grasp of the concepts being outlined, and given my lack of intellectual resources, that is a huge accomplishment for the author.
One thing I very much enjoyed in this book was a look at the "Longitude" issue from a different perspective. I found the famous bestseller about Harrison to be interminably dull and badly written, so reading a concise challenge to some of its core assertions and editorialising made me smile.
I also found some of the heaviest chapters on relativity and quantum physics marginally less incomprehensible thanks to having read Walter Isaacson's biography of Einstein. From the history of the discover of light-speed to the development of modern quantum physics, having the same concepts and players referenced again in a different context felt like getting a few pieces of a sprawling jigsaw puzzle together.
In summary, I highly recommend this as an incredibly interesting and well-argued presentation that taught me a lot. It is a popsci book that was very heavily on the 'sci' end on the spectrum but presented with as much deference to 'pop' as possible. With one glaring and inexplicable exception. NOT ONCE in the book was any reference made to the best ever pop-sci summary of time, from another Doctor Who knew the subject well:
""People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff."