While scientists have come a long way toward deciphering the laws of the universe, many of them still regard time as one of the greatest unsolved mysteries. Physicist Jim Al-Khalili, BBC science presenter and fellow of the Royal Society, explores questions about time that philosophers and scientists have been asking for millennia, such as whether it has a beginning and an end; why it points toward the future and not the past; whether it can be stretched, squeezed, or even reversed; in fact, whether time is even real or just the way our brains make sense of an external, timeless, universe.
Al-Khalili examines these questions across the three central pillars of physics—quantum mechanics, general relativity, and thermodynamics. He shows how time is understood differently in each domain: as a simple coordinate, as an inseparable dimension of space-time, or as a direction or “arrow.” He explains why it can be difficult to reconcile these different perspectives and describes how theorists are attempting to do just that. Al-Khalili makes the case that time is real, and that a guiding Arrow of Time is not a trick of our senses but rather a fundamental feature of reality baked into the structure of the universe.
His new book, On Time: The Physics That Makes the Universe Tick (Princeton University Press), is available for purchase.
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