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Time by Colin Stuart

Book Review

Reviewed by Simon Veal on

Time book cover

Time

10 Things You Should Know

Author: Colin Stuart

Published: 2021

The Cover

The cover depicts an abstract hourglass; simple but a bit boring.

This brief book contains ten short chapters on different aspects of time. We start with how humans have used the motion of the Earth (i.e. rotation for days and passage around the sun for years) to keep time, and on to the atomic clocks that we now use in order to keep accurate time (necessitating leap years and occasional leap seconds in order to keep our clocks in sync with the movements of the earth). There is some stuff on time travel, whether it’s possible (and in what directions) and some discussion about time travel paradoxes. The ways in which the passage of time changes close to the speed of light and in proximity to black holes is also discussed.

This is a very short book; it took me less than 90 minutes to read. It’s entertainingly written and contains all the mind-bending facts you would expect from a book about this mysterious phenomenon. I don’t think there was anything particularly new here for me, since I’ve read several other books on physics that touch on the same subjects. But it was still an enjoyable read.

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