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Time travel : a history / James Gleick.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Pantheon Books, [2016]Edition: First editionDescription: 336 pages : illustrations ; 20 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780307908797 (hard cover : alk. paper)
  • 0307908798 (hard cover : alk. paper)
Subject(s):
Contents:
Machine -- Fin de siècle -- Philosophers and pulps -- Ancient light -- By your bootstraps -- Arrow of time -- A river, a path, a maze -- Eternity -- Buried time -- Backward -- The paradoxes -- What is time? -- Our only boat -- Presently.
Summary: Gleick's story begins at the turn of the twentieth century with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book, an international sensation, The Time Machine. A host of forces were 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. Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea in the culture--from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Woody Allen to Jorge Luis Borges. He explores 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.
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library NonFiction 530.11 G556 Available 33111008553667
Adult Book Adult Book Northport Library NonFiction 530.11 G556 Available 33111007772482
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"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)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine -- Fin de siècle -- Philosophers and pulps -- Ancient light -- By your bootstraps -- Arrow of time -- A river, a path, a maze -- Eternity -- Buried time -- Backward -- The paradoxes -- What is time? -- Our only boat -- Presently.

Gleick's story begins at the turn of the twentieth century with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book, an international sensation, The Time Machine. A host of forces were 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. Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea in the culture--from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Woody Allen to Jorge Luis Borges. He explores 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.

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