Nicholas DiVita

It's said that wisdom consists first and foremost of understanding and accepting that you don't really know anything. If that's so then this book contributes significantly to the quest for wisdom. The inscrutable mystery of time is discussed, described, analyzed and otherwise treated in soaring language from multiple perspectives. The book is richly sourced by a brilliant author. The resulting prose is consistently logical and beautiful. However, few books have made me work harder to keep up. On many points and at many times, I certainly and simply did not keep up. It's humbling. Not all is lost though. The book is at its best when it offers examples and experimental results that illustrate a particular aspect of the mystery of time. I don't know why or how mass (and thus gravity) “slows down” time as between two synchronized clocks but apparently it does. I don't know why relatively greater velocity slows down time but apparently it does (if you ever approach the speed of light apparently time “stands still”). Chew on that. I have no idea what “quantum gravity” is but it's one of the book’s set pieces and a pet subject of the author. I have only a broad grasp of entropy (the Second Law of Thermodynamics) but its relationship to time eludes me completely despite the author's best efforts. Why physics/quantum mechanics equations involving heat also involve time is another one that made me feel quite dumb. Hats off to this author. It's a really well written book on a deceptively complex and mysterious subject.