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Product Description
Albert Einstein, whose Theory of Relativity had made him the most famous scientist in the world, remarked towards the end of his career that he only went in to his office at Princeton 'just to have the privilege of walking home with Kurt Godel'. He and Godel had both fled Europe and the clutches of Nazism and had found rare solace in each other's company in foreign exile. They argued as equals and reinspired their respective interests in pure mathematics and physics. Godel's 'Incompleteness Theorem' had been described at Harvard as the 'most significant mathematical result of the century'. He was one of the few people to understand the philosophical implications of Einstein's theories of the universe - and would later honour Einstein's seventieth birthday by addressing his theories directly, proving time to be an ideal. This extraordinary friendship is one of the most remarkable of the twentieth century, all the more so for remaining so unremarked.

About the Author
Palle Yourgrau is the author of The Disappearance of Time: Kurt Godel and the Idealistic Tradition in Philosophy and editor of Demonstratives. He is currently a Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University.

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First Sentence
In the summer of 1942, while German U-boats roamed in wolf packs off the coast of Maine, residents in the small coastal town of Blue Hill were alarmed by the sight of a solitary figure, hands clasped behind his back, hunched over like a comma with his eyes fixed on the ground, making his way along the shore in a seemingly endless midnight stroll. Read the first page

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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How Kurt and Albert let time disappear, 13 Jan 2008

By	Christian Jongeneel (Rotterdam, Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A World without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein (Paperback)

In 1949 Kurt G�del, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of the twentieth century, was asked to contribute to a festive book commemmorating the seventieth birthday of his good friend Albert Einstein. He decided on some fooling around with general relativity and succeeded in constructing a universe without time. It is just possible that time is an illusion and travelling through it is perfectly feasible.

Einstein was impressed, though slightly disapppointed that his theory hadn't been the final word on time after all. Both giants of science continued to discuss the possibility the rest of their lives. The rest of science has found the idea so counterintuitive that it has hardly been explored.

This is what Palle Yourgrau, a professor of philosophy at Brandeis University, stands to correct. Despite his fine nose for human interest, which he sprinkles liberally over the pages, this is not a book for beginners, as it requires more than a smithereen of background (but not a phd) in modern physics and mathematical logic. For those who wield some command of these subjects 'A world without time' is a delightfully original read.

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7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not the place to begin with philosophy of space and time., 26 Mar 2008

By	Brian Flange "qflestrin" (Penge.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A World without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein (Paperback)

Since about 1991, Palle Yourgrau has been making something of a career out of grossly over-stating the philosophical importance of G�del's work on time, and specifically G�del's argument that the success of general relativity has established the non-existence of time. In case you don't know the field, take it from me: this is a very poor specimen of philosophical writing about time and G�del's view of time has not made converts or commanded wide acceptance. (My take, for what it's worth, is that G�del's epoch-making discoveries in mathematical logic have led some of his followers to take his general philosophical views with a seriousness that they often just don't deserve.) Granted, in 1949 G�del discovered solutions to Einstein's field-equations which describe possible worlds where time no longer seems to posses a unique direction. However, saying that this then establishes the unreality of time in our world - a world profoundly different from those studied in G�del's models - is a very different claim. This volume is the third attempt that Yourgrau has made at producing essentially the same defence of G�del's account of time and once again, he simply doesn't make his case. For a scientifically and philosophically well-informed introduction to what philosophy and science might have to say about time, try Barry Dainton's 'Time and Space' (Acumen, 2002). For a detailed response to earlier versions of Yourgrau's claims, see (e.g.) John Earman's 'Bangs, Crunches, Whimpers and Shrieks: Singularities and Acausalities in Relativistic Spacetimes', (Oxford University Press, 1995). If you're new to the philosophy of time, or philosophy in general, please don't make the mistake of just dismissing or patronising the whole subject on the strength of a few books like Yourgrau's - there are better books and better-informed books out there.

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8 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is why philosopher shouldn't be allowed to write books, 25 Mar 2008

By	Danny of Arabia - See all my reviews

This review is from: A World without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein (Paperback)

Philosophers seem to be people who aren't quite talented enough to do a real subject and this book is exhibit one for the prosecution. One quick example:

He "explains" Godels theorem, whilst patronisingly - and unintentionally hilariously - explaining the reader should not feel bad if he cannot "follow" the reasoning, he says that Godel's theorem doesn't say there is a super-theorem that cannot be decided in any formal system. Of course this is to UTTERLY miss the point of Godels theorem, because if that was all it says then you could simply add that theorem as an axiom. By definition it cannot contradict the other axioms - otherwise it would be decidable.

However, my greatest fear is that some poor undergraduate, probably a philosopher, will read it and feel the need to pontificate his new found "knowledge" to some innately superior mathematician or physicist:

Poor Undergraduate: I read this book. You know that Godels theorem proves that human intuition can prove theorems that computers never can?

Superior Mathematician: Erm, no. Godels theorem shows that there are statements that cannot be proven true or false in a finite number of steps from a finite number of axioms if the system is complete. Clearly if a human has proven a statement, he has written a proof which has a finite number of steps from a finite number of axioms.

PU: But there is no way for the system to prove it is consistent so only a human can know it is.

SM: But a human *cannot* know because by Godels theorem he cannot prove it. He can only show relative consistency which a computer can too.

PU: But he showed "There is a difference between truth and proof", that there are things that are true that we cannot prove.

SM: Actually Godel showed nothing of the sort. In Mathematics, something is true if and only if there is a finite proof from the axioms. What Godel showed is that the number of finite proofs is countable and the number of statements - in first order logic, so not ALL logics - is uncountable hence there must be statements for which there is no proof. These statements aren't "true" or "false", they are undecidable - ie you cannot prove within the logical system if they are true or false. Absolutely nothing mystical about "truth" floating out there that Maths or Science cannot reach, despite the nonsense that is written about it.

PU: Yeah but did you know Godel came up with the idea for a computer?

SM: No I didn't because Turing and Von Neuman did....

PU: But Godel came up with recursive functions which is the "soul of the computer"!

SM: No, that would be Church.

PU: Anyway, Godel came up with an exact solution where all worldlines are closed so that means if we follow you through your life into the future it comes round full circle to the past. So if A can be before B and B before A.

SM: Well, technically A is not before B and B is not before A.

PU: [Confused] What's the difference? [Perks up] But is shows Relativity contradicts casuality! Because for A to cause B it must happen before B!

SM: How does that contradict causality?

PU: Because there is no B where A is before it. Even you admitted it!!!

SM: So what? Why does that contradict casuality?

PU:[feeling very smug because he has shown up the Mathematician] Well it is obvious.

SM:Erm no it isn't. You are *assuming* there are causes in Godels universe. There aren't. If for any A and B, A doesn't cause B and B doesn't cause A then it doesn't matter if A isn't before B and vice versa.

PU:[feeling he MUST make some point] But it proves our world could be without time!

SM: Technically our universe. But we know this isn't the case.

PU: How can you be sure? Godel's universe is theoretically possible.

Superior Physicist:Yeah but Godel's universe doesn't allow for expansion of the universe and we have known since Hubble our universe expands.

PU: Who is Hubble? The book covered the [non-existent]links between Godel's work and Sartre existentialism and Strauss-Levi's structuralism and lots of other important ideas[aka nonsense] but [flicking through the index]no Hubble. He can't have been as important as Kant, Wittegenstein and the others in understanding how the universe works.

SP: Hubble is the guy who proved the universe was expanding hence because Godel's solution does not allow for expansion it cannot describe our universe. It also means via Penrose and Hawking singularity theorems that the universe must have started with a big bang and so Hubble's work was the precursor to the standard model of how the universe came about. There is a school of thought that believes that is a bigger contribution that Kant, Witgenstein and all the other "thinkers" you have quoted.

PU: But they made fundamental contributions to Maths!

SM: This would be the Kant who "proved" that the universe must a priori be three-dimensional and Euclidean because no other geometry is possible - just before Gauss and others actually proved that there existed multi-dimensional, non-Euclidean geometries. Or maybe you mean Hegel who informed Gauss he was wasting his time calculating the orbit of the asteroid Cera because "if he knew his philosophy he'd know there can only be 5 heavenly bodies"? Luckily, Gauss didn't know his philosophy.....(There are many, many billions of heavenly bodies)

PU:[Starting to whine] But theoretically it could be true!

SP: But we *know* it isn't.

PU walks off in a huff, suddenly realising he would never be able to compete intellectually with either Physicists or Mathematicians, nor Biologists or Chemists. Facing the reality he condemned to find some poor niche - like Post-Modernist Lit-crit, Modern Middle Eastern History etc - where people similarly don't have a clue and go around claiming subtle and complex concepts are "obvious", facts aren't important, he spirals down in depression, climbs a watch tower and starts shooting at his fellow students. If only someone has told him, he could go into "philosophy and sociology of science" where complete lack of understanding, ability and intelligence was not only useful but downright mandatory....

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4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting book on a neglected topic

This short book introduces the subject of Godel's investigation into the distinction between 'intuitive' time and the 'formal' time used in science, in particular,... Read more

Published 3 days ago by A. Currie

5.0 out of 5 stars A fight worth picking
As an introduction to the works of Godel post "Incompleteness" and the philosophical implications of Relativity (and no, I didn't know those subjects were connected until I read... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Adrian Hope

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