Review
“A fascinating and comprehensive survey of how technology - from farming to railways to telegraphy to the internet - has changed our everyday concept of time. [Frank] is excellent at showing how our ideas of human and cosmic time have evolved hand in hand... Compelling.” - Marcus Chown, New Scientist
“Eloquent... [Frank's] trek through the history of humanity takes a parallel look at how we have gained a deeper grasp of the Universe during our time on Earth.” - Nature
“Today there are many books on the nature of time as we experience it and even more on cosmic time as revealed by science. Yet few attempt to recount the entwined narratives of cosmic history and human time as a unified whole. Adam Frank's About Time does just that... [An] excellent book.” - The Telegraph
“In this ambitious and wonderfully expansive study, [Frank] weaves together the parallel histories of personal, lived time with cosmic time - the cosmologies that we have been fashioning to explain the universe since the dawn of human civilisation.”
--The Guardian“Contains enough that is original to keep even seasoned ‘time buffs’ engaged, and its author is a first-rate storyteller. Reading About Time would be time well spent.” - Physics World
“The central thesis of Frank is that... our science of time has been moulded by social time and vice versa. The links between the two stories are artfully made... It is a novel, popular approach, and for anyone wanting to explore cosmology for the first time, this would be a good place to start.”
--Astronomy Now“A phenomenal blend of science and cultural history... Ultimately, Frank argues that recognizing our place in the ongoing narrative of the creation of cultural time and cosmic time - moving beyond the cosmology of the Big Bang (of which ‘ours’ may be one of many) - is what will allow mankind to enter a new, global era of time and culture.” - Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“From prehistory to the Enlightenment, through Einstein and on to the multiverse, this is a rich and inspiring tour through some of the biggest ideas that have ever been thought.”
--Sean Carroll, author of From Eternity to Here and The Particle at the End of the Universe“Contains enough that is original to keep even seasoned ‘time buffs’ engaged, and its author is a first-rate storyteller. Reading About Time would be time well spent.” - Physics World
“The central thesis of Frank is that... our science of time has been moulded by social time and vice versa. The links between the two stories are artfully made... It is a novel, popular approach, and for anyone wanting to explore cosmology for the first time, this would be a good place to start.”
--Astronomy Now“A phenomenal blend of science and cultural history... Ultimately, Frank argues that recognizing our place in the ongoing narrative of the creation of cultural time and cosmic time - moving beyond the cosmology of the Big Bang (of which ‘ours’ may be one of many) - is what will allow mankind to enter a new, global era of time and culture.” - Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“From prehistory to the Enlightenment, through Einstein and on to the multiverse, this is a rich and inspiring tour through some of the biggest ideas that have ever been thought.”
--Sean Carroll, author of From Eternity to Here and The Particle at the End of the Universe
