Ebook: The end of time: the next revolution in physics

"Richard Feynman once quipped that "Time is what happens when nothing else does." But Julian Barbour disagrees: if nothing happened, if nothing changed, then time would stop. For time is nothing but change. It is change that we perceive occurring all around us, not time. Put simply, time does not exist. In this highly provocative volume, Barbour presents the basic evidence for a timeless universe, and shows why we still experience the world as intensely temporal. It is a book that strikes at the heart of modern physics. It casts doubt on Einstein's greatest contribution, the spacetime continuum, but also points to the solution of one of the great paradoxes of modern science, the chasm between classical and quantum physics. Indeed, Barbour argues that the holy grail of physicists--the unification of Einstein's general relativity with quantum mechanics--may well spell the end of time. Barbour writes with remarkable clarity as he ranges from the ancient philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides, through the giants of science Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, to the work of the contemporary physicists John Wheeler, Roger Penrose, and Steven Hawking. Along the way he treats us to enticing glimpses of some of the mysteries of the universe, and presents intriguing ideas about multiple worlds, time travel, immortality, and, above all, the illusion of motion. The End of Time is a vibrantly written and revolutionary book. It turns our understanding of reality inside-out."--Publisher.;Part 1. The big picture in simple terms: The main puzzles -- Time capsules -- A timeless world -- Part 2. The invisible framework and the ultimate arena: Alternative frameworks -- Newton's evidence -- The two great clocks in the sky -- Paths in Platonia -- Part 3. The deep structure of general relativity: The bolt from the blue -- Minkowski the magician -- The discovery of general relativity -- General relativity: the timeless picture -- Part 4. Quantum mechanics and quantum cosmology: The discovery of quantum mechanics -- The lesser mysteries -- The greater mysteries -- The rules of creation -- "That damned equation" -- Part 5. History in the timeless universe: The philosophy of timelessness -- Static dynamics and time capsules -- Latent histories and wave packets -- The creation of records -- The many-instants interpretation -- The emergence of time and its arrow -- Life without time.