Louis J. Blume Library

The Idea of Time

The Idea of Time Charles Hepworth Holland Trinity College, Dublin, Eire What is time? What do we understand when we think about time? What do we mean by 'now'? This book covers concisely all the different aspects of time with an anchoring point within the geological sciences. Here successions of strata are seen as representing successions of events in the long history of the earth; palaeontology provides a record of organic evolution through nearly the whole of these several thousand million years. The rest of the book diversifies in discussing the measurement of time both physically and biologically; our human perception of it; the ending of personal time in death; the pervading presence of time in the arts; out through astronomy to cosmology; into philosophy and religion. The idea of time is a very complex one but this book undertakes a journey to prove that it is not beyond comprehension.

The geometry of time

A description of the geometry of space-time with all the questions and issues explained without the need for formulas. As such, the author shows that this is indeed geometry, with actual constructions familiar from Euclidean geometry, and which allow exact demonstrations and proofs. The formal mathematics behind these constructions is provided in the appendices.
The result is thus not a textbook introducing readers to the theory of special relativity so they may calculate formally, but rather aims to show the connection with synthetic geometry. It presents the relation to projective geometry and uses this to illustrate the starting points of general relativity. Written at an introductory level for undergraduates, this novel presentation will also benefit teaching staff.

On July 29th 1914, the world's peace was shattered as the artillery of the Austria-Hungary Empire began shelling the troops of the country to its south. What followed was like a row of falling dominoes as one European country after another rushed into war. Soon most of Europe was fighting in this calamitous war that could have been avoided. This was, of course, the First World War. But who could have guessed that on December 25 the troops would openly defy their commanding officers by stopping the fighting and having a spontaneous celebration of Christmas with their "enemies"?

The Accidental Time Machine

From the acclaimed author of Marsbound comes a mind-bending sci-fi adventure that will have you questioning the very fabric of time itself

Struggling grad school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when he inadvertently creates a time machine. With a dead-end job and a girlfriend who left him for another man, Matt has nothing to lose in taking a time-machine trip himself--or so he thinks.

In search of time : the history, physics and philosophy of time

Time surrounds us. It defines our experience of the world; it echoes through our every waking hour. Time is the very foundation of conscious experience. Yet as familiar as it is, time is also deeply mysterious. We cannot see, hear, smell, taste, or touch it. Yet we do feel it―or at least we think we feel it. No wonder poets, writers, philosophers, and scientists have grappled with time for centuries.

In his latest book, award-winning science writer Dan Falk chronicles the story of how humans have come to understand time over the millennia, and by drawing from the latest research in physics, psychology, and other fields, Falk shows how that understanding continues to evolve. In Search of Time begins with our earliest ancestors' perception of time and the discoveries that led―with much effort―to the Gregorian calendar, atomic clocks, and "leap seconds." Falk examines the workings of memory, the brain's remarkable "bridge across time," and asks whether humans are unique in their ability to recall the past and imagine the future. He explores the possibility of time travel, and the paradoxes it seems to entail. Falk looks at the quest to comprehend the beginning of time and how time―and the universe―may end. Finally, he examines the puzzle of time's "flow," and the remarkable possibility that the passage of time may be an illusion.

Entertaining, illuminating, and ultimately thought provoking, In Search of Time reveals what some of our most insightful thinkers have had to say about time, from Aristotle to Kant, from Newton to Einstein, and continuing with the brightest minds of today.

From eternity to here : the quest for the ultimate theory of time

Twenty years ago, Stephen Hawking tried to explain time by understanding the Big Bang. Now, Sean Carroll says we need to be more ambitious. One of the leading theoretical physicists of his generation, Carroll delivers a dazzling and paradigm-shifting theory of time's arrow that embraces subjects from entropy to quantum mechanics to time travel to information theory and the meaning of life. From Eternity to Here is no less than the next step toward understanding how we came to exist, and a fantastically approachable read that will appeal to a broad audience of armchair physicists, and anyone who ponders the nature of our world. -- publisher.

The End of Eternity

One of Isaac Asimov's SF masterpieces, this stand-alone novel is a monument of the flowering of SF in the 20th century. It is widely regarded as Asimov's single best SF novel and one every SF fan should read.

Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, a member of the elite of the future. One of the few who live in Eternity, a location outside of place and time, Harlan's job is to create carefully controlled and enacted Reality Changes. These Changes are small, exactingly calculated shifts in the course of history made for the benefit of humankind. Though each Change has been made for the greater good, there are always costs.

During one of his assignments, Harlan meets and falls in love with Noÿs Lambent, a woman who lives in real time and space. Then Harlan learns that Noÿs will cease to exist after the next change, and risks everything to sneak her into Eternity.

Unfortunately, they are caught. Harlan's punishment? His next assignment: kill the woman he loves before the paradox they have created results in the destruction of Eternity.

Time warped : unlocking the mysteries of time perception

Time rules our lives, but how much do we understand it? Is it possible to retrain our brains and improve our relationship with it? Drawing on the latest research from the fields of psychology, neuroscience,and biology, and using original research on the way memory shapes our understanding of time, the author delves into the mysteries of time perception, offering insight into how to manage our time more efficiently, how to speed time up and slow it down at will, how to plan for the future with more accuracy, and how to use the warping of time to our own benefit.

The Times the Are A-Changing

Includes: The Times They Are A-changin' -- Ballad of Hollis Brown -- With God on Our Side -- One Too Many Mornings -- North Country Blues -- Only a Pawn in Their Game --Boots of Spanish Leather -- When the Ship Comes in --The lonesome death of Hattie Carroll --Restless farewell.

Displacement

A teenager is pulled back in time to witness her grandmother's experiences in World War II-era Japanese internment camps in Displacement, a historical graphic novel from Kiku Hughes.

Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II.

These displacements keep occurring until Kiku finds herself "stuck" back in time. Living alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, Kiku gets the education she never received in history class. She witnesses the lives of Japanese-Americans who were denied their civil liberties and suffered greatly, but managed to cultivate community and commit acts of resistance in order to survive.

Kiku Hughes weaves a riveting, bittersweet tale that highlights the intergenerational impact and power of memory.

Fat time and other stories

In Fat Time and Other Stories, Jimi Hendrix, Francis Bacon, the boxer Jack Johnson, Miles Davis, and a space-age Muhammad Ali find themselves in the otherworldly hands of Jeffery Renard Allen, reimagined and transformed to bring us news of America in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Along with them are characters of Allen’s invention: two teenagers in an unnamed big city who stumble through a down-low relationship; an African preachervisits a Christian religious retreat to speak on the evils of fornication in an Italian villa importedto America by Abraham Lincoln; and an albino revolutionary who struggles with leading his people into conflict.

The two strands in this brilliant story collection―speculative history and tender, painful depictions of Black life in urban America―are joined by African notions of circular time in which past, present, and future exist all at once. Here the natural and supernatural, the sacred and the profane, the real and fantastical, destruction and creation are held in delicate and tense balance. Allen’s work has been said to extend the tradition of Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Henry Roth, and Ishmael Reed, but he is blazing his own path through American literature. Fat Time and Other Stories brilliantly shows the range and depth of his imagination.