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  • Time Reborn

  • From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe
  • By: Lee Smolin
  • Narrated by: Sean Pratt
  • Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (48 ratings)
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Time Reborn

By: Lee Smolin
Narrated by: Sean Pratt
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Summary

What is time?

This deceptively simple question is the single most important problem facing science as we probe more deeply into the fundamentals of the universe. All of the mysteries physicists and cosmologists face - from the Big Bang to the future of the universe, from the puzzles of quantum physics to the unification of forces and particles - come down to the nature of time.

The fact that time is real may seem obvious. You experience it passing every day when you watch clocks tick, bread toast, and children grow. But most physicists, from Newton to Einstein to today's quantum theorists, have seen things differently. The scientific case for time being an illusion is formidable. That is why the consequences of adopting the view that time is real are revolutionary.

Lee Smolin, author of the controversial bestseller The Trouble with Physics, argues that a limited notion of time is holding physics back. It's time for a major revolution in scientific thought. The reality of time could be the key to the next big breakthrough in theoretical physics.

What if the laws of physics themselves were not timeless? What if they could evolve? Time Reborn offers a radical new approach to cosmology that embraces the reality of time and opens up a whole new universe of possibilities. There are few ideas that, like our notion of time, shape our thinking about literally everything, with huge implications for physics and beyond - from climate change to the economic crisis. Smolin explains in lively and lucid prose how the true nature of time impacts our world.

©2013 Spin Networks, Ltd. (P)2013 Tantor

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    3 out of 5 stars

Exciting and surprisingly clear

For a complex science book, this is beautifully read, and well-paced. The first part, in which Smolin describes just exactly how time has been removed from physics ever since the Enlightenment, and what problems this creates, is superb. Even if one knows much of it already, the clarity of his presentation is wonderful.
As to his solution - the reintroduction of time as fundamental - in the second part, it is not so good. There is so much material in contemporary physics, so many theories and so much complexity that he cannot avoid getting bogged down in uninspired detail. As for his epilogue, it is just loopy in the extreme. But one must forgive him, for the brilliance of the first part.

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Welcome back...TIME!

Just as consciousness arise from our vast neural network, the universe self-creates itself from the huge relational network between its particles. It is a living organism, and we are some of its cells. It grows from us and with us.

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Just awful!

Part 1 of the book is a random collection things mostly very old ideas long rejected that achieved nothing other that attack the 'other side' with early science mistakes and straw-man arguments. Only after this section does he mention that up to this point saying that saying people rejected time did not actually mean that as such... but I was left still unclear what the problem was or the distinction between his real time and others use of non-real time.

The rest was a bit less random but still terrible. Lots of terrible analogies and not applying the same logic/rules to both 'sides' of the argument. Throughout the book he talks as if we need to reject the “Newtonian paradigm” and the rejection of time like this is something many do. Until this book I thought everyone accepted the Newtonian view as a convenient local approximation, but this just kept making it sound like other scientists and theoretical physicists actually still believe in it!!

He presents multiple options as A or B when there is not such binary choice and appears to just create his own narrative to knock down. Far too many time going back to talking about ideas from pre 21th century as the alternative view to his vague idea. I never really understood his position beyond he believes time is real and thinks others don't. He should have spent more time presenting his ideas rather than pointing out the historical errors, many that helped get us to our current understanding on the cosmos.

This frankly was written like some religious writers who use and abuse science to sound clever while saying little of worth to end up with a “thus god” conclusion…. So much so I had to go read the Wikipedia page of the author early on to validate they really were a theoretical physicist and this was not heading that way. I can only assume that in an attempt to translate from the complexity of the actual scientific arguments in to a more layman language and prose they have just got very lost. I suspect the underlying ideas are of scientific interest but the way this was presented was nothing short of horrendous.

In summary not only does Smolin not present his ideas clearly but he spends was too much attacking straw-men and just making assertions many which appear just wrong.










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Love the Author & The Book

Maybe not for the total novice. I read it many times after reading more books on the subject before I was able to fully get to grips with this. When I did, it became fascinating.

I tend to think we live in a simulation or inside of every black hole are the other universes theories predict.

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Though Provoking

Book describes a beautiful and scientific thought process that gave me a lot to think about.

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