By Adam Frank
Oneworld
Paperback: £12.99
In 1963, Bob Dylan penned the song The Times They Are a-Changin’, which quickly became the anthem for a new generation. But according to Adam Frank’s provocative book, the times have always been changing: first, hunter-gatherers driven by the immediacy of hunger; then pioneer farmers dictated by the seasons. After that came a series of industrial revolutions: workers having to move to towns and adapt to factory drudgery; mechanical transport extending the span of distance of daily life; and today’s digital devices compressing time and distance even further (with the constant pressure to download the latest app or have the newest browser update).
About Time compares the accelerating pace of this race towards no clear destination with the evolution of cosmology, from ancient mythology to the modern picture of multiple universes. The changing world picture is continually benchmarked against the seemingly unpredictable emergence of new lifestyles as technology advances.
In doing so, the story line can lurch startlingly at times. It leaps from the introduction of labour-saving electrical household appliances in the early 20th century to the commissioning of the Mt. Wilson Hooker telescope; from the measurement of galactic red shifts and an apparently expanding universe to the cultural revolution brought about by domestic radio. The ideas of quantum mechanics are then wedged into two pages.
Frank’s illustrations cover a wide range. I appreciated being reminded of the tragic figure of British music producer Joe Meek, whose 1962 instrumental piece marking the technological miracle of Telstar resonated in contemporary lifestyle as the first British recording to appear in the US charts – one year before the Beatles, who the mercurial Meek had meanwhile chosen to ignore.
The book traces the key historical giants, from the Ancient Greek philosophers and before through to Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble and beyond. Some figures are less familiar, for example Ambrose Crowley, a British industrial magnate who was a contemporary of Isaac Newton. Despite his obscurity, Crowley’s impact on technology is compared with that of Newton’s on science.
Some conventional ideas are sold short, for example the role of time in quantum physics and its deep connection with antimatter. Paul Dirac, the pioneer of antimatter, appears in a cameo role to introduce a whole section on the iconoclast Julian Barbour and his provocative book The End of Time. Barbour suggests that the continual quest to understand time fails because time itself is an illusion.
Although Frank’s About Time does not venture that far, it is an unconventional book, which could motivate an inquisitive young mind.
