The Children of Time

"A work of scientific substance and critical wisdom, developed in the urbane idiom of a French scholar." -- J. T. Fraser, founder, International Society for the Study of Time "This is the book for those of us who couldn't wade completely through Hawking's A Brief History of Time and now have it collecting dust on our bookshelves. Well written, thought-provoking, and, most important, understandable." -- Michael Epstein, analytical spectroscopist/chemist, National Institute of Standards and Technology What is time? Does it really pass? These and other fascinating questions about the nature of time animate a continuing philosophical and scientific debate. In this popular French book, now available for the first time in English; my Lestienne moves to make the bewildering concepts of time accessible--and interesting. He uses Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and others to demonstrate how the concepts of causality and entropy became so pervasive that they eventually were substituted for time itself. He also shows how recent advances in astronomy, particle physics, developmental life sciences, and the neurosciences are helping to shape a new philosophical vision of time.