Research Catalog

Time travel : a history

Title
Time travel : a history / James Gleick.
Author
Gleick, James
Publication
  • New York : Pantheon Books, [2016]
  • ©2016

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TextUse in library JFC 17-160Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
336 pages : illustrations; 20 cm
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.
  • "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." -- Publisher's description
Subjects
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references and index.
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.
Call Number
JFC 17-160
ISBN
  • 9780307908797
  • 0307908798
LCCN
  • 2016002323
  • 40026554437
OCLC
935983379
Author
Gleick, James, author.
Title
Time travel : a history / James Gleick.
Publisher
New York : Pantheon Books, [2016]
Copyright Date
©2016
Edition
First edition.
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Other Standard Identifier
40026554437
Research Call Number
JFC 17-160
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