Time Travel

Zusatztext 41399670 Informationen zum Autor JAMES GLEICK (around.com) is our leading chronicler of science and technology! the best-selling author of Chaos: Making a New Science! Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman! and The Information: A History! a Theory! a Flood . His books have been translated into thirty languages. Klappentext "A time-jumping! head-tripping odyssey." -The Millions "A bracing swim in the waters of science! technology and fiction." -Washington Post "A thrilling journey of ideas." -Boston Globe From the acclaimed author of The Information and Chaos! here is a mind-bending exploration of time travel: its subversive origins! its evolution in literature and science! and its influence on our understanding of time itself. The story begins at the turn of the previous century! with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book and an international sensation: The Time Machine. It was an era when a host of forces was converging to transmute the human understanding of time! some philosophical and some technological: the electric telegraph! the steam railroad! the discovery of buried civilizations! and the perfection of clocks. James Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea that becomes part of contemporary culture-from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who! from Jorge Luis Borges to Woody Allen. He investigates the inevitable looping paradoxes and examines the porous boundary between pulp fiction and modern physics. Finally! he delves into a temporal shift that is unsettling our own moment: the instantaneous wired world! with its all-consuming present and vanishing future. (With a color frontispiece and black-and-white illustrations throughout) ONE Machine   A man stands at the end of a drafty corridor, a.k.a. the nineteenth century, and in the flickering light of an oil lamp examines a machine made of nickel and ivory, with brass rails and quartz rods—a squat, ugly contraption, somehow out of focus, not easy for the poor reader to visualize, despite the listing of parts and materials. Our hero fiddles with some screws, adds a drop of oil, and plants himself on the saddle. He grasps a lever with both hands. He is going on a journey. And by the way so are we. When he throws that lever, time breaks from its moorings.   The man is nondescript, almost devoid of features—“grey eyes” and a “pale face” and not much else. He lacks even a name. He is just the Time Traveller: “for so it will be convenient to speak of him.” Time and travel: no one had thought to join those words before now. And that machine? With its saddle and bars, it’s a fantasticated bicy­cle. The whole thing is the invention of a young enthusiast named Wells, who goes by his initials, H. G., because he thinks that sounds more serious than Herbert. His family calls him Bertie. He is trying to be a writer. He is a thoroughly modern man, a believer in social­ism, free love, and bicycles. A proud member of the Cyclists’ Touring Club, he rides up and down the Thames valley on a forty-pounder with tubular frame and pneumatic tires, savoring the thrill of riding his machine: “A memory of motion lingers in the muscles of your legs, and round and round they seem to go.” At some point he sees a printed advertisement for a contraption called Hacker’s Home Bicy­cle: a stationary stand with rubber wheels to let a person pedal for exercise without going anywhere. Anywhere through space, that is. The wheels go round and time goes by.   The turn of the twentieth century loomed—a calendar date with apocalyptic resonance. Albert Einstein was a boy at gymnasium in Munich. Not till 1908 would the Polish-German mathematician Hermann Minkowski announce his radical idea: “Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shad...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: James Gleick
• Editore: Pantheon Schocken Books
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 27.09.2016
• EAN: 9780375715204
• ISBN: 978-0-375-71520-4
• Pagine: 336
• Dimensioni: 153 mm x 190 mm x 22 mm
• Serie: PANTHEON BOOKS
• Categoria: Scienze naturali, medicina, informatica, tecnica > Scienze naturali, tematiche generali