The Nature of Time

This book reviews and contrasts contemporary and historical perceptions of time from scientific and intuitive human points of view. Ancient and modern clocks, Augustinian ideas, the deterministic Newtonian universe, biological clocks, deep time, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and relativity all contribute to the perspective. The focus is on what can be inferred from established technologies and science as opposed to futuristic speculation.

Chapter 1 describes clocks, including the cesium atomic clocks establishing the current global time standard, a history of clock development, biological clocks, phylogenetic trees, radioactive dating, and astronomical methods to determine the age of the universe. Chapter 2 poses ancient questions about time not fully addressed by an understanding of the technical nature of clocks. An early summary of some of these questions as described by Augustine in the 3rd century CE is followed by a description of how Newton, 1300 yea