The Labyrinth of Time Introducing the Universe [Hardcover]

Modern physics has revealed our knowledge of the universe as a much stranger place than we could have imagined. The puzzle at the center of our understanding of the universe is time. Michael Lockwood takes the reader on a fascinating journey into the nature of things. He investigates philosophical questions about the past, present, and future, our experience of time, and the possibility of time travel. And he provides the most careful, lively, and up-to-date introduction to the physics of time and the structure of the universe. His aim is not just to boggle the mind, but to lead the reader towards an understanding of the science and philosophy.

1. Two Concepts of Time
2. Time and Space: a Marriage is Arranged
3. Taking Space-Time Seriously
4. From Flat to Curved Space-Time
5. Weaving the Cosmic Tapestry
6. Closed Timelike Curves: Science Fact or Science Fiction?
7. Classical Time Travel: the Toils of Paradox
8. Hamilton's Legacy: Physical Systems and their State Spaces
9. Time Asymmetry and the Second Law
10. Entropy, Electrodynamics and the Role of Gravity
11. 'Drawn Through Life Backwards'
12. The Unyielding Past
13. The Emergence of Order
14. From Quantum Leaps to Schrodinger's Cat
15. Schrodinger's Time Traveler
16. Space, Time, and Quantum Gravity: Physics at the Frontier
17. The Time of Our Lives
18. Epilogue

Michael Lockwood's bookThe Labyrinth of Time: Introducing the Universehas just appeared. I highly recommend it. It's a wonderful overview of the physics and philosophy of time, crafted extremely carefully and engagingly (yet without compromising any content) for the lay reader, superbly produced and illustrated. Oh, and it's true. --Professor David Deutsch, author ofThe Fabric of Reality

Lockwood takes the informed general reader through relativity theory and quantum physics on the large scale as well as the very small, reviewing theories of Newton, Boltzmann, l£~