H. Chris Ransford, INPG, Grenoble, France
"Time is the river in which runs our life. We are all quite
familiar with time. But time is a mystery for physics. Chris
Ransford, in his book "The Far Horizons of Time", invites us to an
almost poetic hike through the most advanced concepts of relativity
and quantum mechanics. This trek makes us visit some really
strange, sometimes even weird parts of our world; Alice's promenade
in the Wonderland appears as quite boring once the reading of the
book is finished. In the world of relativity time contracts or
expands depending on the direction one is walking toward; even if
the universe were to be infinite you can only know about a finite
sphere; strange Black Holes do cannibalize all matter and light
passing by, but they could as well be the cradle for new universes.
While relativity applies to astronomic objects, quantum mechanics
helps us apprehend objects with the size of an atom. This world is
mostly made out of vacuum in which photons can spontaneously appear
from nowhere as long as they live only very short periods of time.
Particles can cross energy barriers, like a ghost can cross a wall.
More, two photons can share a same wave function: if one acts on
one of these, then the properties of the other one are
instantaneously modified in a fully predictable way. This happens
even if the photons are appart at such a large distance one from
the other that communication at the speed of light between them is
impossible for explaining the phenomenon. Physics cannot escape
metaphysics. It uses principles that are not laws and cannot be
demonstrated: "energy is a conservative quantity" or "the action is
minimal during dynamical evolutions", for example. The Occam's
razor principle is even fuzzier, stating that the best explanation
of any physical effect is the one that needs the minimum number of
hypotheses.
Chris Ransford smoothly navigates over the ocean of the strange
effects physics is made of, avoiding the pitfalls dug by the
principles and leading us along multiple universes that appear
everywhere from nowhere and no when. At the end of the journey we
face an animist definition of time that directly connects us to the
Paleolithic era. Fascinating."
Dr. Charles Hirlimann, Institut de Physique et Chimie des Mat�riaux
de Strasbourg, France "The book 'The Far Horizons of Time' by Chris
Ransford covers the paradoxes of time. These paradoxes relate to
the human understanding of the Universe, seen as a whole in its
development in which mankind plays its own part, however small. To
that end, the author uses aspects of quantum science as may apply
to both time and life itself. Considering that after Einstein's
theory of relativity time is no longer seen as a separate
dimension, but as closely intertwined with space, the
distinctiveness of 'The Far Horizons of Time' lies in how it looks
neutrally at all possible renditions of what time is, from more
ancient ideas to the multiverse. The latter, seen from the Tryon
scenario, makes a difference between time and space: while space
can bend, can duplicate into another baby-universe, can create
small amounts of a force called torsion (67) - in one word, space
can be distorted - time is still something different, something
parallel with space. The apparent arrow of time shows time as
invariant, going in one direction only, without fluctuations, from
past to the future, but the human mind (the 'ultimate quantum
machine') is the only real factor that can distort time and create
'bubbles of time' (81)."
Cosmin Tudor CIOCAN, PhD, Department of Theology, Ovidius
University of Constanta, Constanţa, Romania "Analyzing time has
been a recurrent topic of research in physics. This book discusses
many oddities and subtleties of time from the point of view of
modern theoretical physics, including relativity and quantum
physics. Furthermore, it includes an interesting discussion of the
role of mathematics according to the Comtean hierarchy and the role
of infinity in the ideas related to time. In spite of its brevity,
the book is rather dense and goes deep into many concepts, which
are explained in a rather clear manner without loss of rigor. The
author also makes some explorations on quantum effects of the mind,
though he also considers very modern theories such as time in G�del
universes, the possible existence of other instances of a big bang
and multiple parallel universes to finalize with a discussion of
emergent phenomena and the mind. The reader of this book will
enrich himself with a very broad and critical overview of many
modern ideas and developments in theoretical physics. A large
collection of end notes clarifying many concepts discussed in the
book and a rich list of related books for further reading is
included at the end, so that the interested reader may explore this
field of physics research."
Miguel A.F. Sanju�n, Department of Physics, King Juan Carlos
University, Madrid, Spain "This pretty book attempts to relate two
of the greatest mysteries of Science,
the nature of time and the human brain. Although these intriguing
arguments
have been analyzed by various authors and scientists, I find the
approach of
this book original. In addition, the author discusses some fields
of enquiry
that can have been overlooked by previous authors. In order to
achieve his
ambitious result, the author reviews and discusses at popularizing
level various interesting issues of maths, physics and cosmology,
like infinity & infinities, quantum mechanics, wave functions,
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, G�del universes, big bang,
bubbles of time, black holes, etc. In general, this book is a very
interesting and enjoyable reading for both of experts and common
readers."
Christian Corda, Dipartimento di Fisica, Scuola Superiore di Studi
Universitari e Ricerca, "Santa Rita", San Pietro Infine (CE), Italy
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