Average customer rating:
- Directions
- Tod is really Odilo Unverdorben
- You Will Like It or Hate It: Brilliant or Just Chaos - Like a Movie Played Backwards
- tiresome gimmick of a novel.
- Unique narration is the strong point of this book.
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Time's Arrow
Martin Amis
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Literary
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Amis, Martin
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ASIN: 0679735720
Release Date: 1992-09-29 |
Amazon.com
Amis attempts here to write a path into and through the inverted morality of the Nazis: how can a writer tell about something that's fundamentally unspeakable? Amis' solution is a deft literary conceit of narrative inversion. He puts two separate consciousnesses into the person of one man, ex-Nazi doctor Tod T. Friendly. One identity wakes at the moment of Friendly's death and runs backwards in time, like a movie played in reverse, (e.g., factory smokestacks scrub the air clean,) unaware of the terrible past he approaches. The "normal" consciousness runs in time's regular direction, fleeing his ignominious history.
Book Description
In
Time's Arrow the doctor Tod T. Friendly dies and then feels markedly better, breaks up with his lovers as a prelude to seducing them, and mangles his patients before he sends them home. And all the while Tod's life races backward toward the one appalling moment in modern history when such reversals make sense.
"The narrative moves with irresistible momentum.... [Amis is] a daring, exacting writer willing to defy the odds in pursuit of his art."--Newsday
Customer Reviews:
Directions.......2007-08-20
The main conceit of this novel is that time is moving backward. We learn, through dialogue which is chronologically backward who and what the main character is, the nature of his crimes, and the realization of what kind of character we are dealing with. In less deft hands than Amis', this premise could quickly become confusing or a bore. But Amis writes sentences of great declarative value, and is an extraordinary craftsman with words. So this POMO exercise in a non-traditional narrative never feels contrived or unnatural. It does not have a forced quality but seems a natural outgrowth of Amis' world of words.
Tod is really Odilo Unverdorben.......2007-07-09
Martin Amis delivers a clever book that tries to examine the horrors of the Nazis and what happened to the Nazi fugitives after the Red Army captured the concentration camps.
Tod Friendly starts the novel by dying and lives his life backwards from the viewpoint of a narrating spirit or doppelganger. This clever device of living backwards, unbeknownst to the narrator, takes a little getting used to but you get the hang of it shortly. Sadly, we realize that Tod is not who he seems and continues to have nightmares from his future (his youth in this case.) Tod is really Odilo Unverdorben, a fugitive war criminal that experimented on Jews in the concentration camps during the holocaust.
Tod is a surgeon who carefully breaks bones or impales victims (again living backwards) where the injured go off and heal themselves in the chaotic world. Ironically, the spirit doesn't realize the difference between the alias Tod as a surgeon hurting people so that they get better in the chaos, versus Odilo Unverdorben in Nazi Germany in the past that brings the Jew's back to life from the gas chambers (the alter ego again is experiencing everything backwards.)
It sounds confusing, but it's a clever writing device. It's a short book, anything longer with the backwards time would get tiresome, but I think Amis handles it all masterfully.
You Will Like It or Hate It: Brilliant or Just Chaos - Like a Movie Played Backwards.......2007-05-31
I love to read novels but could not get relate in any fashion to this book and gave up after page 50 of the short 160 pages. Many reviews for this book are positive, but the book does not seem to measure up to the hype - Booker short list, etc. - and in retrospect I would not have bought the book, and perhaps this review can save someone else some money.
The book is written from the perspective of time going backwards, similar to watching a movie film played backwards. It covers some of the large and small events of modern urban life. For example, and going backwards, it describes a range of things from historical events to a bowl movement. Yes, a backward bowl movement, and a backward car crash, and a backward baby being sucked back into the womb, and on and on. There was a temptation to get around all of this and simply turn to the last page and read the book from the back, and I did try that briefly.
After a while - about 10 pages for me - it is all a bit too much. It is a lot of work for a small gain. There are many better and more rewarding reads.
Madame Bovary or a PD James novel is an ideal read for myself: these novels have realism, a predictable structure, one can follow the story without a fuss, one can stop and think, admire the prose, etc. That is all missing here. This is similar to a backwards in time chaotic urban Jack Kerouac.
Not all will like it.
I could not finish and gave up after two tries at around page 50.
tiresome gimmick of a novel........2007-02-11
if it is one thing i hate in a book it's a gimmick. gimmick writing is almost never clever or interesting or good, it is simply a gimmick. the gimmick here is that mr amis writes the novel backwards. the story, all dialogue, everything is backward. end to beginning, this, like all gimmicks, gets real tiresome, real fast. years ago i read mr amis's book "money," which i loved. i have been looking forward to reading more of him, so this came as a great disappointment. don't waste your time.
Unique narration is the strong point of this book........2007-02-11
This is a great book for a mid-winter read. The characters are not likeable, the images are disturbing and (not often enough) haunting, and there are parts that lag; but the reason I read this book was its unique narrative device. A story told backwards, even if it is clichéd and devoid of any new insight, is worth any reader's time,--simply for the experience. I teach English and when going over the concept of narration with my students I brought in this book and read an excerpt. The kids were instantly hooked and I recieved numerous requests to borrow the book (sadly impossible since many of the book's themes are inappropriate for adolescent readers), but to see them excited about a book was a pleasant experience. I highly recommend this book for people looking for the slight mental exercise of reading a story (dialogue and all) in reverse.
Book Description
Why is the future so different from the past? Why does the past affect the future and not the other way around? What does quantum mechanics really tell us about the world? In this important and accessible book, Huw Price throws fascinating new light on some of the great mysteries of modern physics, and connects them in a wholly original way. Price begins with the mystery of the arrow of time. Why, for example, does disorder always increase, as required by the second law of thermodynamics? Price shows that, for over a century, most physicists have thought about these problems the wrong way. Misled by the human perspective from within time, which distorts and exaggerates the differences between past and future, they have fallen victim to what Price calls the "double standard fallacy": proposed explanations of the difference between the past and the future turn out to rely on a difference which has been slipped in at the beginning, when the physicists themselves treat the past and future in different ways. To avoid this fallacy, Price argues, we need to overcome our natural tendency to think about the past and the future differently. We need to imagine a point outside time -- an Archimedean "view from nowhen" -- from which to observe time in an unbiased way. Offering a lively criticism of many major modern physicists, including Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking, Price shows that this fallacy remains common in physics today -- for example, when contemporary cosmologists theorize about the eventual fate of the universe. The "big bang" theory normally assumes that the beginning and end of the universe will be very different. But if we are to avoid the double standard fallacy, we need to consider time symmetrically, and take seriously the possibility that the arrow of time may reverse when the universe recollapses into a "big crunch." Price then turns to the greatest mystery of modern physics, the meaning of quantum theory. He argues that in missing the Archimedean viewpoint, modern physics has missed a radical and attractive solution to many of the apparent paradoxes of quantum physics. Many consequences of quantum theory appear counterintuitive, such as Schrodinger's Cat, whose condition seems undetermined until observed, and Bell's Theorem, which suggests a spooky "nonlocality," where events happening simultaneously in different places seem to affect each other directly. Price shows that these paradoxes can be avoided by allowing that at the quantum level the future does, indeed, affect the past. This demystifies nonlocality, and supports Einstein's unpopular intuition that quantum theory describes an objective world, existing independently of human observers: the Cat is alive or dead, even when nobody looks. So interpreted, Price argues, quantum mechanics is simply the kind of theory we ought to have expected in microphysics -- from the symmetric standpoint. Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point presents an innovative and controversial view of time and contemporary physics. In this exciting book, Price urges physicists, philosophers, and anyone who has ever pondered the mysteries of time to look at the world from the fresh perspective of Archimedes' Point and gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, the universe around us, and our own place in time.
Customer Reviews:
What if?.......2007-05-15
"What if" is perhaps the most significant of all scientific questions because the speculation it causes can lead to remarkable insights.
Likewise, "what if" can also be the inspiration for great fiction as here where the author takes us on many a wild goose chase. While the goose chases aren't necessarily a waste of time, readers should be aware of them nonetheless.
First things first: to understand the physical basis for the arrow of time, we need to understand the basis of reality in which the arrow of time is housed. As currently understood, reality is a confluence of four physical forces:
1) Gravity -- exerted at the macroscopic level and greater consistent with the increasing size of the object in question;
2) Electromagnatism -- exerted macroscopically, it concerns the relationship between electricity and magnatism;
3) The srong nuclear force -- exerted microscopically at the subatomic level, it concerns the relationship between the constituent particles of the nucleus;
SO FAR ALL THE FORCES DESCRIBED ARE TIME SYMMETRICAL, IN OTHER WORDS, THEY OPERATE THE SAME WAY WHETHER ONE IS SEEKING TO UNDERSTAND THE NORMAL SEQUENTIAL PASSAGE OF TIME -- SO CALLED RETARDED TIME -- OR REVERSED TIME SO CALLED ADVANCED TIME.
4) The fourth currently understood fundamental force of nature -- the weak nuclear force -- which also operates microscopically at the subatomic level but relates to proton decay. Since 1957, we have been aware that this force is time asymmetric in that so called K particle decay (so called because the decay pattern in a bubble chamber resembles the letter K) operates in a fashion consistent with retarded time.
While one might think that a fundamental force of nature showing a selective prejudice for the type of time that we physically observe might merit some serious reflection, Price's response is to simply disregard the matter as being physically insignificant because the interactions happen on such a minute scale (viz. the subatomic realm).
In other words, by Price's reasoning the fact that after the Big Bang, matter only outnumbered antimatter by a measure of one billion and one particles to one billion would enable him to say that we live in an antimatter universe because the enumerated differences between the number of particles was so small.
While his discussion of quantum entanglement is fascinating, his insights invariably serve as yet another wild goose chase. Disdained by Albert Einstein as "spooky action at a distance" quantum entanglement is the phenomenon that exists wherein two particles become entangled with a similar subatomic signature. Amazingly, research has shown that regardless of the seeming physical distance between the particles, a change in the signature to one of them can cause a similtaneous change in the signature of the other.
While fascinating, follow up research has failed to show that any useful information can be communicated through this immediate process and therefore -- though interesting -- it doesn't defeat Einsteinian causality.
Indeed, properly understood, it best inspires us to better understand what locality really is when we discuss the quantum level...a discussion not significantly fostered by Price's speculations.
Probabaly a better -- though harder -- read on this topic is Deiter Zeh's Physical Basis for the Direction of Time.
Groundbreaking Evidence for Bicausality.......2006-09-06
TIME'S ARROW is a remarkably well-conceived exploration of the matter of bicausality. Author Huw Price applies a philosopher's logical approach to the physics of time, as he builds such a solid case for reverse time causality that he is influencing many of today's top physicists with his lucid exploration of the subject. TIME'S ARROW methodically presents information about time in a manner that will delight mathematicians, philosophers and physicists alike, in a book that is best read sequentially from beginning to end, in order to ensure full comprehension. This book is obligatory reading for anyone fascinated by time, or who is intrigued to discover what inspired Stephen Hawking in 2006 to write a physics paper on the subject of top-down cosmology... with the notion that the present is affecting the past.
On Price's "Time's Arrow and the Archimededs' Point".......2003-12-20
On page 13 of "Time's Arrow and the Archimededs' Point", Huw Price writes:
".... If time flowed - then as with any flow - it would only make sense to assign that flow a direction with respect to a CHOICE (my emphasis) as to what is to count as the positive direction of time. .... The problem is that until we have such an objective basis we don't have an objective sense in which time is flowing one way rather than the other. In other words, not only does it not seem to make sense to speak of an objective rate of flow of time; it also doesn't make sense to speak of an objective rate of time; it also doesn't make sense to speak of an objective direction of time."
There are a number of ways that the world we inhabit seems asymmetric in time. Price believes that these perceptions of asymmetry are due to way we see reality, and less how reality actually is. He reminds the reader of how humanity has struggled before with anthropocentrism. Seeing the second law of thermodynamics as an EXPLANATION of time's arrow is just another anthropocentrism.
On page 17, Price writes:
".... The leading candidate for the position (the master arrow) has been the so-called arrow of thermodynamics. This is the asymmetry embodied in the second law of thermodynamics, which says roughly that the entropy of an isolated physical system never decreases.... There is nothing to stop us taking the positive axis to lie in the opposite direction, however, in which case the second law would need to be started as the principle that entropy of an isolated system never increases.... It is not an objective matter whether the gradients really go up or down, for this simply depends on an arbitrary choice of temporal orientation."
On page 20, Price writes:
"... We unwittingly project onto the world some of the idiosyncrasies of our own makeup, seeing the world in the colors of the in-built glass through which we view it. But the distinction between these sources is not always a sharp one, because our constitution is adapted to the peculiarities of our region.... It challenges the image physics holds of itself as an objective enterprise, an enterprise concerned with not with how things seem but with how they actually are. It is always painful for an academic enterprise to have to acknowledge that it might not have been living up to its own professed standards!"
On page 39, Price writes:
"... It seems to me that the problem of explaining why entropy increases has been vastly overrated. The statistical considerations suggest that a future in which entropy reaches its maximum is not in need of explanation; and yet that future, taken together with the low-entropy past, accounts for the general gradient... The puzzle is not about how the universe reaches a state of high entropy, but about how it comes to be starting from a low one. It is not about what appears in our time sense to be the destination of the greater journey on which matter is engaged, but about the point from which - again in our time sense - that journey seems to start."
What Price is describing above is what has been referred to as the ready-state paradox (see Chapter 6 of David Albert's book "Time and Chance"). And Price is right in pointing out that many of our "explanations" seems to fall to our anthropocentrism, given that we start out by assuming what it is that we seek to prove by introducing a time asymmetric ASSUMPTION.
Our low entropy birth at the big bang is a boundary condition, and one does not use statistics and determinism to explain such a boundary condition. Boundary conditions are more generally brute force realizations that are beyond explanation. So if you think that the second law of thermodynamics can explain cosmic evolution, and perhaps even the evolution of life, then think again. Or you may go on a meaningless journey to find the first ready-state.
It is quite plausibly that the early boundary conditions are determined by the present, given that time flowing backward is as plausible as time flowing forward. This brings up the possibility of backward causation, something that Price writes much on. But boundary conditions relate to collective properties, something going against the trend of reductionism. And so backward causation may better apply from the whole to its parts, which mirrors reductionism as forward causation generally goes from parts to whole.
Price writes much on Gold's big bang and big crunch model of the universe, and he writes on alternative views too. Having navigated safely from the time-flow anthropocentrism, Price seems to have gotten himself snagged on a second anthropocentrism that we are isolated from everything else. It is true we may see ourselves as all knowing creatures that are competing for our survival in a lifeless pool of chaos we call our universe. But there is no objective basis for this belief (see Thomas Nagel's "The View from Nowhere"). It is just a possible that we are the forgetful universe reflecting hopelessly into the many egocentric bodies that are said to be all knowing. Are we the inside system or the outside system? The question is symmetrical, and cannot be answered. Then why do we answer it by projecting a Gold's universe onto reality by demanding a separate big crunch future that is just as likely as our big bang past?
A two aspect view of reality does not carry this unwanted anthropocentrism. It is that reality has an all knowing aspect that is perceived to be following the thermodynamic arrow, and the SAME reality holds a sublime shadow aspect where time is reversed from the present. In the sublime aspect the many celebrate as one, whereas in the forward aspect the one fragments into many.
The zone where the two aspects connect is the inexpressible core, where symmetries are broken and manifestation unfolds. It is the core where choices are made, and where creative tensions are released. I believe this two aspect model of the universe provides that best model that answers Price's concerns, and yet it does not demand that the future is locked into a big crunch as the evidence now suggests.
This two-aspect capacity to one reality is consistent with panpsychism, but Price does not mention this either. I mention it in my book, "Trinity":
Trinity: The Scientific Basis of Vitalism and Transcendentalism
OK but not the best.........2003-06-13
The author seems to go out-of-his-way to make this tome more obtuse and forbidding than it needs to be in order to present his theories.
The book is a decent supplement to other books on space/time theory but is indeed a very tedious read, and is more for the serious student than the casual reader who merely enjoys sampling divergent views on cosmologic concepts.
I certainly do not agree with the author on a number of points, but the publication is worth your while if you have the patience to slog through it, and it surely does afford some new perspective on the subject.
Philosopher sets the Physicists Straight on Time.......2001-08-24
In this book, Huw Price uses his advantage as a philosopher to show physicists where they're going all wrong on the big "what is time?" issue. I'm teasing, but while making some excellent points, Price does sound a little condescending sometimes. I wondered, while I read, if a physicist would find it merely amusing, or would be growling a bit. This book requires concentration just because he lays out intricate step-by-step explanations and arguments. Because the arguments are built logically, you can't afford to nap. He does indicate several times the chapters that could be skipped without losing his general points. The gist of his argument is this: We exist inside the system (that is, within the space-time continuum),we are deceived by that position into wrong conclusions. The solution he advocates is "Archimedes'point," that is, we should hypothesize a position outside the system,the "view from nowhere," and from there will come up with more accurate explanations of what's going on, in his opinion, that time really is non-directional. He makes some excellent points along the way, and certainly just the exercise of working through his arguments is good for the ol' brain, but some of his arguments and conclusions are invalid. The chief problem I see is; this time-space system has produced directional time perceiving agents like us. (It has produced really cumbersome directional arguments like his!) While our perspective is limited, I don't believe that it can be dismissed. It is a very big deal that beings like us exist in this universe. We can't pretend that the universe exists merely of little bits of matter knocking around. Theoretical physics does drift near the edge of the religious question, and I would have expected a philosopher to at least acknowledge that, while the "God question" is not subject to analysis, physics does at times seem to be working overtime simply to avoid a "prime mover."
Book Description
This volume revisits the Nobel Prize-winning economist Kenneth Arrow’s classic 1963 essay âUncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Careâ in light of the many changes in American health care since its publication. Arrow’s groundbreaking piece, reprinted in full here, argued that while medicine was subject to the same models of competition and profit maximization as other industries, concepts of trust and morals also played key roles in understanding medicine as an economic institution and in balancing the asymmetrical relationship between medical providers and their patients. His conclusions about the medical profession’s failures to âinsure against uncertaintiesâ helped initiate the reevaluation of insurance as a public and private good.
Coming from diverse backgroundsâeconomics, law, political science, and the health care industry itselfâthe contributors use Arrow’s article to address a range of present-day health-policy questions. They examine everything from health insurance and technological innovation to the roles of charity, nonprofit institutions, and self-regulation in addressing medical needs. The collection concludes with a new essay by Arrow, in which he reflects on the health care markets of the new millennium. At a time when medical costs continue to rise, the ranks of the uninsured grow, and uncertainty reigns even among those with health insurance, this volume looks back at a seminal work of scholarship to provide critical guidance for the years ahead.
Contributors
Linda H. Aiken
Kenneth J. Arrow
Gloria J. Bazzoli
M. Gregg Bloche
Lawrence Casalino
Michael Chernew
Richard A. Cooper
Victor R. Fuchs
Annetine C. Gelijns
Sherry A. Glied
Deborah Haas-Wilson
Mark A. Hall
Peter J. Hammer
Clark C. Havighurst
Peter D. Jacobson
Richard Kronick
Michael L. Millenson
Jack Needleman
Richard R. Nelson
Mark V. Pauly
Mark A. Peterson
Uwe E. Reinhardt
James C. Robinson
William M. Sage
J. B. Silvers
Frank A. Sloan
Joshua Graff Zivin
Book Description
Exploration of Second Law of Thermodynamics details fundamental dynamic properties behind construction of statistical mechanics. Topics include maximal entropy principles; invertible and noninvertible systems; ergodicity and unique equilibria; and asymptotic periodicity and entropy evolution. Geared toward physicists and applied mathematicians; suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses. 1992 edition.
Book Description
This book has been thoroughly revised to include important new results. At the same time it retains the features that make it a classic text on irreversibility, and one which clearly distinguishes the latter from those time asymmetries which may be compensated for by other asymmetries. The book investigates irreversible phenomena in classical, quantum and cosmological settings. In particular, this fourth edition contains a revised treatment of radiation damping as well as extended sections on dynamical maps, quantum entanglement and decoherence, arrows of time hidden in various interpretations of quantum theory, and the emergence of time in quantum gravity. Both physicists and philosophers of science who reviewed earlier editions considered this book a magnificent survey, a concise, technically sophisticated, up-to-date discussion of the subject, showing showing fine sensitivity to crucial conceptual subtleties.
Customer Reviews:
Buy the FIFTH EDITION due out June 2007!.......2007-05-15
Make no mistake, this is a great book!
It thoroughly discusses the six arrows of time and their law like vs. fact like nature. It discusses pretty much every other serious work that's been done respecting time and its physical descriptions (including those of Hu Price and Julian Barbour as well as the more conventional accounts by Stephen Hawking).
And also, it has some fascinating speculations on how the universal expansion itself might be the master arrow of time.
However, it IS an expensive book and since Zeh will be having his Fifth Edition out in June 2007, you might want to wait until it's out to purchase his thoughts on this significant and important area of research.
That said, whether you choose to purchase the June 2007 version or this one, you won't be disappointed.
THE place to look for the physics behind the arrow of time.......1999-12-11
A lot has been written about the arrow of time, a large amount of which leaves out the details (such as Huw Price's recent book). For those details, this is THE place to look. Those discussing the arrow of time, whether they agree or disagree with his conclusions, generally start with what has been written down here.
In this slim volume, Zeh gives a wonderfully concise and broad coverage to all physical aspects of the arrow of time. Furthermore, while his approach is rigorous, he makes a point of drawing out what the mathematical conclusions mean, and he does so quite lucidly. As a bonus he has a wonderful section on the quanticization of time. The only problem with this book is the rather high price tag, which will probably stop most of the casual readers interested in the topic from picking up a copy.
Book Description
Love is strange. It can be the source of both profound inspiration and deep misery. Its complexities and dimensions have possessed us since the beginning of time, and no emotion is as linked to human history as love. It defines who we are, what we do, and how we live and yet remains an enigmatic presence in our lives. In Cupid's Arrow, renowned psychologist Robert J. Sternberg presents a unique psychological approach to our understanding of this powerful emotion. He explores human relationships, revealing how and why people fall in and out of love. The book draws on fields ranging from history to cognitive science to folklore, offering a fascinating and comprehensive account of love in its many forms. Sternberg applies his "triangular theory," examining the many varieties of love through combinations of intimacy, passion, and commitment. Using this theory as a focal point, Cupid's Arrow delivers both a fresh perspective on the experience of love during the lifetime of the individual, and a rich history of the conceptions of love throughout the ages. This book will prove to be enlightening and engaging reading for anyone who has ever dared to try to understand love. Robert J. Sternberg is IBM Professor of Psychology and Education at Yale University. He has received numerous awards, including the Sylvia Scribner Award of the American Educational Research Association in 1996. He has authored hundreds of articles and dozens of books, including Thinking Styles (Cambridge, 1997) and Successful Intelligence (Simon and Schuster, 1996).
Customer Reviews:
Great.......2005-01-16
This book provides a foundation to understand relationships.
The inclusion of many psychological theories as well as literature provide great thought provocation.
I think you would definately be able to take something away from this book. If nothing else (even if you don't subscribe to any of the theories), it definately delivers a way of discussing relationships.
I can;t see any way thay someone could not apply some of the theory to either past present or future.
I ended up highlighting many meaningful paragraphs that I can use/refer to.
I Love the book and recommend it!
An easy-to-read introduction to the psychology of love.......1999-06-10
A lot of people don't know that, in addition to his extensive work on intelligence, Bob Sternberg of Yale University does research on love. He's now written several books on love, but Cupid's Arrow is my favorite. It's easy to read, it's entertaining, and covers almost all the important data on love and attraction that has come out in the past 30 years. He starts the book with his own "triangular theory of love" framework, which serves as a nice organizer for the material. In addition to being a terrific introduction to the REAL psychology of love (as presented by real psychological scientists rather than bored therapists with PhD after their name), the book gives a detailed account of breakups of long-term relationships and a review of love in literature and culture. The chapters are diverse and fascinating. If you have any interest in what research can tell you about love and attraction, or in gaining insight into your own relationship or breakup, give this short book a try. You won't regret it
Book Description
The all-new team-up trilogy.
Spiderman: Marvel's most popular hero
X-Men: Marvel's most popular super-team
Customer Reviews:
Mostly for the series.......2002-12-02
I don't really remember enough about the books individually but I loved the series. I'm a BIG Gambit/Rogue fan, and there was one section in the third book I LOVED. But mostly I liked meeting some of the characters I rarely read about. The guy who's searching through time to find one where his wife lives. Or Spiderman and Bishop bonding (Now there's something odd!) I really liked the series, it said a lot about the not-so-common characters and their connection with the main characters.
A must read.......2002-10-02
I really liked the way this book is written. its a real page tuner.
sweet.......2002-06-08
I very much enjoyed the teaming of the Web Slinger and the Uncanny Xmen
Fair.......2001-07-01
When you actually read the book, it's not as good as you think it'll be. Half the book is trying to understand a machine that if one has seen the 'toon or the comics they already understand. Could have been better.
One actual good thing, IMO was the cliff-hanger in the end. I won't say what it was so as not to spoil it for others.
Well balanced adventure.......2001-01-31
This first part of the trilogy has a good balance of story, characters and cameos. Yes, it is a story involving time travel and thus all the classic time travel elements are in the story. Some might see it as cliched - but I see it as consistent. The pairings of the heroes as well as the characters they encounter in the various time periods are well done.
One of the better novels involving super-heroes that I have read.
Book Description
Rarely has a scholar attained such popular acclaim merely by doing what he does best and enjoys most. But such is Stephen Jay Gould's command of paleontology and evolutionary theory, and his gift for brilliant explication, that he has brought dust and dead bones to life, and developed an immense following for the seeming arcana of this field.
In Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle his subject is nothing less than geology's signal contribution to human thought--the discovery of "deep time," the vastness of earth's history, a history so ancient that we can comprehend it only as metaphor. He follows a single thread through three documents that mark the transition in our thinking from thousands to billions of years: Thomas Burnet's four-volume Sacred Theory of the Earth (1680-1690), James Hutton's Theory of the Earth (1795), and Charles Lyell's three-volume Principles of Geology (1830-1833).
Gould's major theme is the role of metaphor in the formulation and testing of scientific theories--in this case the insight provided by the oldest traditional dichotomy of Judeo-Christian thought: the directionality of time's arrow or the immanence of time's cycle. Gould follows these metaphors through these three great documents and shows how their influence, more than the empirical observation of rocks in the field, provoked the supposed discovery of deep time by Hutton and Lyell. Gould breaks through the traditional "cardboard" history of geological textbooks (the progressive march to truth inspired by more and better observations) by showing that Burnet, the villain of conventional accounts, was a rationalist (not a theologically driven miracle-monger) whose rich reconstruction of earth history emphasized the need for both time's arrow (narrative history) and time's cycle (immanent laws), while Hutton and Lyell, our traditional heroes, denied the richness of history by their exclusive focus upon time's Arrow.
Customer Reviews:
Does history repeat itself or does it generate a sequence of unique events?.......2006-07-10
Does history repeat itself or does it generate a sequence of unique events? This is the fundamental question "Time's Arrow and Time's Cycle" asks. It is my third favourite Gould book, after "Wonderful Life" and "Bully for Brontosaurus". From a literary and philosophical point of view, it's possibly his best book, being more tightly focused than WL and more developed than the essays in BfB.
You'll find here many standard Gould devices such as fascinating segues and the rehabilitation of discredited thinkers. For instance we read the story of how James Hampton built his masterpiece, his throne to the glory of God, out of discarded junk (it's now at the Smithsonian). Gould also rehabilitates the 17th century thinker Thomas Burnet and his unsubstantiated cosmological theories. He also presents two more orthodox thinkers, James Hutton and Charles Lyell, and contrasts their gradual uniformitarianism with the sudden catastrophism of Burnet.
Gould explicitly dismisses Burnet's scientific credentials but still uses Burnet's vision as a starting point. It is by opposing Burnet to Hutton and Lyell that Gould asks the question as to what history is: repetive and uniform, or cyclical? The answer of course is a little of both. Again, Burnet's vision provides the clue to the answer. There are cycles, and within the cycle there are shocks and catastrophes. Or is it the other way around? Clearly Time is a difficult concept to grasp!
Vincent Poirier, Tokyo
Time's Arrow Time's Cycle.......2002-10-08
Time's Arrow Time's Cycle written by Stephtn Jay Gould is a book that takes human thought to a new level in comprehending geology's vastness of history... the discovery of deep time. Gould works this book's major theme in the role of metaphor in the formulation and testing of scientific theories as the directionality (narrative history) of time's arrow or the immanence of time's cycle (immanent laws).
This book is both an account of geology's greatest discovery and philosophical commentary on the nature of scientific thought. As this thought takes us from thought of time in thousand of years to billions of years, inspired by empirical observation of rocks in the field.
Gould follows a single thread through three documents that mark the transition in our thinking: Thomas Burnet's four-volume "Sacred Theory of the Earth" (1680-1690), James Hutton's "Theory of the Earth (1795), and Charle Lyell's three-volume "Principle of Geology (1830-1833). Gould shifts through these writings giving the reader a history and background needed for a progressive march to the truth of the geological history through an enlightened observation.
Reading this book will captivate the curious reader and helps the human mind understand the vastness of time and the struggle to understand it.
curve ball that looks like a slider.......2000-12-05
The title of the review is an homage to Gould's oft mentioned love of baseball. This book is a cogent explanation of how European scientists (natural philosophers) recounciled the narrative tradition of history inherited from the Judeo-Christian template with the eternal return perspective of the Classical civilizations. Both view points-as-metaphors shed light on interpretation of the geological record. There are both serial and cyclic elements in the history of the earth, so the scientific community found truth in spite of the fact that individual scientists tended to emphasize one perspective over the other.
Gould exposes the 'cardboard cut-out' Whig version of history that most working scientists have received uncritically as hurried historical preambles to their study of geology per se. James Hutton, for example, is held up as a paragon of the field geologist who supposedly preceded his assertion of the existence of 'deep time' with countless hours in the field. Not so, says Gould. In fact, Hutton did his field work after he conceived the idea of a lengthy earth history and merely used his field observations to bolster his claim. Thomas Burnet, author of the much made-fun-of Sacred Theory of the Earth, is revealed to have been a champion of uniformitarianism before Hutton even conceived of it. Burnet refused to advance causes for events described in the Bible that could not be explained by the laws of physics as advanced by Isaac Newton. Finally, Charles Lyell is exposed as a master of rhetoric who conflated methodological and substantive aspects of uniformitarianism in order to sway his audience. No member of the scientific community contemporary to Lyell clung to the Mosaic timescale. He merely used it as a strawman. It was Lyell who managed to mate the narrative and eternal return perspectives into a coherent view of Earth history. First he did so by insisting the apparent progress observed in the fossil record was caused by the immense scale of the cycles of Earth history. Eventually he conceded the reality of evolution and allowed for the existence of an arrow of time whose path did not curve.
Gould's book is modified from a series of lectures, which is probably why there is so much uncharacteristic repetition of themes and ideas in this book. It was the only aspect of this book that I found irritating. Gould is also candid about his pride at uncovering various inaccuracies in the received wisdom and unearthing original themes to explain patterns in the history of geology. I have heard other people complain about this personality trait. I have no problem with it and believe that his satisfaction with his own cleverness is quite justifiable.
Meet the mythmakers.......2000-05-14
Stephen Jay Gould's love of science history really shows through in this work, which focuses on changing ideas about time and geology. It's well-researched and makes some very intriguing points about science in general, but if you have no patience for geology you probably won't get that far - it's nowhere near as accessible as his essay collections, but that's only to be expected. Every science major should read this book, and so should anyone who likes to think of themselves as well-informed about history and science.
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Time's Arrows Today: Recent Physical and Philosophical Work on the Direction of Time
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ASIN: 0521599458 |
Book Description
While it may seem indisputable that time flows in a linear fashion (from past to future), there are a number of philosophical and physical objections to this notion. In the quest to make sense of this conundrum, philosophers and physicists confront fascinating and irresistible questions such as whether effects can precede causes, and whether one can travel in time. In this book, eleven eminent scholars who stand at the boundary between physics and philosophy attempt to answer these questions. There are chapters by W. Unruh and H. Price on cosmology; A. Leggett, P. Stamp, and S. McCall on quantum theory; M. Barrett, E. Sober, and L. Sklar on thermodynamics, and P. Horwich and J. Earman on time travel. The book will be enjoyed by anyone of a speculative turn of mind fascinated by the puzzle of time.
Customer Reviews:
Read this book........1997-04-30
The nature of time is one of the oldest and most basicquestions in Western philosophy;
since we are all destined to growolder and watch irreversible changes in our bodies, and
we are all aware that we will eventually die, it is probably a basic and inherent question in
all philosophical systems. Whoever tries to understand the nature of time must explain
two of its apparent characteristics: it seems to be unidirectional and unchanging. This
perhaps explains the name of this book, which is concerned not only with the direction of
time but also with time's essential nature. This book is one of a large number on the
subject which have been published recently. I haven't read the others, being more
familiar with earlier discussions of the question, but I have two remarks to make about
this one: Anyone who doesn't read it is missing something, and the general level of
academic philosophy has greatly improved in the last few years, which I've noticed in
other books as well.
Most of the articles in this collection are good, but I particularly enjoyed four of them.
The first is Savitt's historical overview of modern discussions of the direction of time,
which is just that, and excellent.
The second is Unruh's discusssion of the new role of time in general relativity and
quantum mechanics. Unruh begins by by saying the Newton "tells us that it is
unnecessary to define time, but then proceeds to do just that". Unruh misunderstands
Newton, who indeed leaves time undefined; what Unruh thinks is a definition is a
warning not to confuse physical time, which needs no substrate, with common concepts
of time based on recurrent phenomena in concrete objects. It's when Unruh talks about
relativistic time that he really comes into his own. He explains that gravitation is an
inherent consequence, an epiphenomenon, of the concept of spacetime. Few of his
colleagues try to explain what gravity is, one of the really basic questions; they delude
themselves into thinking they have done so when they have really only described anew
how is behaves quantitatively. He also has a section on time in quantum mechanics
which can serve as an ultrashort introduction to some of the basic concepts of that entire
subject.
The second of Sklar's articles here is mainly a critique of attempts to explain perceived
time in terms of entropy. Most of his objections can be countered by replacing the
concept of entropy in systems external to the person by that of neurochemical systems
which are inherently asymmetrical under physiological constraints, but his discussion is
deep and enlightening.
Barrett and Sober point out that entropy, the most popular word in modern explanations
of time, "is well-defined [only] for chambers of gases", and proceed to construct an
abstract mathematical concept of entropy which will also be useful in discussions of time.
In addition to everything else, most of the articles in this book, including these four, are
beautifully literate, written by and for educated people. Anybody with an interest in
time, or metaphysics generally, will profit from and enjoy reading it. Only elementary
mathematics, if any, is really necessary.
Read this book........1997-04-30
The nature of time is one of the oldest and most basic questions in Western philosophy;
since we are all destined to grow older and watch irreversible changes in our bodies, and
we are all aware that we will eventually die, it is probably a basic and inherent question in
all philosophical systems. Whoever tries to understand the nature of time must explain
two of its apparent characteristics: it seems to be unidirectional and unchanging. This
perhaps explains the name of this book, which is concerned not only with the direction of
time but also with time's essential nature. This book is one of a large number on the
subject which have been published recently. I haven't read the others, being more
familiar with earlier discussions of the question, but I have two remarks to make about
this one: Anyone who doesn't read it is missing something, and the general level of
academic philosophy has greatly improved in the last few years, which I've noticed in
other books as well.
Most of the articles in this collection are good, but I particularly enjoyed four of them.
The first is Savitt's historical overview of modern discussions of the direction of time,
which is just that, and excellent.
The second is Unruh's discusssion of the new role of time in general relativity and
quantum mechanics. Unruh begins by by saying the Newton "tells us that it is
unnecessary to define time, but then proceeds to do just that". Unruh misunderstands
Newton, who indeed leaves time undefined; what Unruh thinks is a definition is a
warning not to confuse physical time, which needs no substrate, with common concepts
of time based on recurrent phenomena in concrete objects. It's when Unruh talks about
relativistic time that he really comes into his own. He explains that gravitation is an
inherent consequence, an epiphenomenon, of the concept of spacetime. Few of his
colleagues try to explain what gravity is, one of the really basic questions; they delude
themselves into thinking they have done so when they have really only described anew
how is behaves quantitatively. He also has a section on time in quantum mechanics
which can serve as an ultrashort introduction to some of the basic concepts of that entire
subject.
The second of Sklar's articles here is mainly a critique of attempts to explain perceived
time in terms of entropy. Most of his objections can be countered by replacing the
concept of entropy in systems external to the person by that of neurochemical systems
which are inherently asymmetrical under physiological constraints, but his discussion is
deep and enlightening.
Barrett and Sober point out that entropy, the most popular word in modern explanations
of time, "is well-defined [only] for chambers of gases", and proceed to construct an
abstract mathematical concept of entropy which will also be useful in discussions of time.
In addition to everything else, most of the articles in this book, including these four, are
beautifully literate, written by and for educated people. Anybody with an interest in
time, or metaphysics generally, will profit from and enjoy reading it. Only elemantary
mathematics, if any, is really necessary
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