How to Build a Time Machine - Hardcover

Davies, Paul

3.82

1,258 ratings by Goodreads

9780713995831: How to Build a Time Machine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0713995831 ISBN 13: 9780713995831

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2001

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Inspired at an impressionable age by the work of science fiction writers such as H.G.Wells and Arthur C Clarke, Paul Davies has thought long and hard about possible ways to travel in time in much the same way that you can travel in space. In HOW TO BUILD A TIME MACHINE the best-selling popular science writer finally reveals how it can be done - without breaking the laws of physics and without causing any earth-shattering paradoxes. Since time is money, time travel is a costly business. But withthe help of a handy black hole, or better a wormhole, and a bit of luck, Davies's guide illustrates how this new mode of travel could yet be a viable option.

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Review:

In How to Build a Time Machine, Paul Davies, Professor of Theoretical Physics and a veteran of the popular science writing genre, has produced a delightful little book about time and time-travel. The format of the book is reader-friendly, written in his usual clear, lucid and engaging style with text linked to relevant sketches, photographs and diagrams of machinery. At the heart of the book is an explanation of Einstein's theory of relativity and what that theory tells us about the possibility of time-travel. Einstein's theory tells us that travel into the future is certainly possible while the possibility of travel into the past has not yet been ruled out. What makes this book such a fascinating and fun read is finding out about the practicalities of building a time machine. If we want to travel into the future, Davies tells us, all we need do is build a machine that moves fast enough. Any machine will do so long as it can move at a velocity close to the speed of light. Things become really interesting however, when we start to think about how to travel backwards in time. The method Davies outlines in the book involves using a wormhole adapted to form a time machine. You jump into the hole and come out in another place and in another, past time. This is a "machine" that is part of the structure of the universe, a machine you step through into the past. Davies then presents a step-by-step guide to building such a machine with illustrations of the various components and descriptions of the processes involved before discussing some of the paradoxes of time-travel. A more interesting way of learning about Einstein's theory than this is difficult to imagine; this is a highly entertaining read and an excellent introduction to the subject of theoretical physics. --Larry Brown

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