About Time

Cosmology, Time and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang

By: Adam Frank

Narrated by: David Drummond

Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

The Big Bang is all but dead, and we do not yet know what will replace it. Our universe's "beginning" is at an end. What does this have to do with us here on Earth? Our lives are about to be dramatically shaken again - as altered as they were with the invention of the clock, the steam engine, the railroad, the radio and the Internet.

In About Time, Adam Frank explains how the texture of our lives changes along with our understanding of the universe's origin. Since we awoke to self-consciousness 50,000 years ago, our lived experience of time - from hunting and gathering to the development of agriculture to the industrial revolution to the invention of Outlook calendars - has been transformed and rebuilt many times. But the latest theories in cosmology - time with no beginning, parallel universes, eternal inflation - are about to send us in a new direction. Time is both our grandest and most intimate conception of the universe. Many books tell the story, recounting the progress of scientific cosmology. Frank tells the story of humanity's deepest question - when and how did everything begin? - alongside the story of how human beings have experienced time. He looks at the way our engagement with the world - our inventions, our habits and more - has allowed us to discover the nature of the universe and how those discoveries, in turn, inform our daily experience. This astounding book will change the way we think about time and how it affects our lives.

©2011 Adam Frank (P)2011 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A phenomenal blend of science and cultural history." ( Kirkus)

a history of time

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

only an intelligent friend that enjoys both history and science

What did you like best about this story?

I liked the timeline of timekeeping and it's effects on society

Any additional comments?

honestly I think Adam frank did a better job explaining time that Sean Carroll did in his book. The two books are very different though

More fluff than science

This book is not for those who like fiction and non-fiction blended and still called non-fiction. I found it highly distracting and highly questionable that the author started off every chapter with little stories about ancient people. I became instantly turned off to how I was forced to sit through subjective thought exercises as to how humans may have perceived time in the past.

Occasionally the author actually got into science, verifiable, not dumbed-down science and it was wonderful until he went into his next stories. Being a history "buff" I also found the stories highly questionable as they did not have archeological facts behind them.

If you are new to the topic of time and prefer more fantasy with your science, this is the book for you.

If you are already familiar with cosmology, and general life sciences, STAY AWAY. This book will insult your intelligence and keep teasing you with good science among fiction.

I will be seeking to return this book.

about everything

I was hoping to read something about "time". but, it was simply a compilation of all the information you could find in popular science books, and more (like email, web, and much much more), literally like a laundry list. funny thing is, in every paragraph, the author managed to put in the word, time. it was used hundreds of times, if not more, throughout the book. but, at the end of the day, the author seems to confound time with history, or something else. I had to stop listening in the middle.