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Julian Barbour

The End of Time

The first part of this book takes a very simple universe with just three particles, making a triangle. Barbour shows how a configuration of such a universe can be represented as a point in a hypothetical space, Platonia. This leads on to discussions of absolute space and time. The book then introduces the reader to quantum mechanics and relatvity and so is suitable for the non-specialist reader. The book concludes with a discussion of Barbour's claim that the flow of time is an illusion, that all that we truly experience are instants. Barbour is a skilled writer, and I think that anyone interested in the philosophy of time will find much of interest in this book.

I have to say that I think that there are problems with Barbour's ideas though. Firstly relativity says that there are many ways of matching 'now' here with 'now' elsewhere. Barbour includes all such ways as part of Platonia, which I feel is excessively bloated as a result - mathematical fictions have been substituted for reality. The second problem is the deciding what exactly an instant is - do we have to accept uncountably many instants in the smallest interval. I find any philosophy which requires a particular structure for time at the lowest level to suspect. However, I wouldn't say that these were criticisms of the book, rather an indication of how Barbour's ideas can stimulate discussion.

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Paperback 384 pages
ISBN: 0195145925
Salesrank: 242172
Weight:1.19 lbs

Published: 2001 Oxford University Press, USA

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Paperback 384 pages
ISBN: 0753810204
Salesrank: 42542
Weight:0.53 lbs

Published: 2000 Phoenix

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Paperback 384 pages
ISBN: 0195145925
Salesrank: 37049
Weight:1.19 lbs

Published: 2001 Oxford University Press

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Product Description
Richard Feynman once quipped that "Time is what happens when nothing else does." But Julian Barbour disagrees: if nothing happened, if nothing changed, then time would stop. For time is nothing but change. It is change that we perceive occurring all around us, not time. Put simply, time does not exist. In this highly provocative volume, Barbour presents the basic evidence for a timeless universe, and shows why we still experience the world as intensely temporal. It is a book that strikes at the heart of modern physics. It casts doubt on Einstein's greatest contribution, the spacetime continuum, but also points to the solution of one of the great paradoxes of modern science, the chasm between classical and quantum physics. Indeed, Barbour argues that the holy grail of physicists--the unification of Einstein's general relativity with quantum mechanics--may well spell the end of time. Barbour writes with remarkable clarity as he ranges from the ancient philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides, through the giants of science Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, to the work of the contemporary physicists John Wheeler, Roger Penrose, and Steven Hawking. Along the way he treats us to enticing glimpses of some of the mysteries of the universe, and presents intriguing ideas about multiple worlds, time travel, immortality, and, above all, the illusion of motion. The End of Time is a vibrantly written and revolutionary book. It turns our understanding of reality inside-out.

Product Description

Richard Feynman once quipped that "Time is what happens when nothing else does." But Julian Barbour disagrees: if nothing happened, if nothing changed, then time would stop. For time is nothing but change. It is change that we perceive occurring all around us, not time. Put simply, time does not exist.
In this highly provocative volume, Barbour presents the basic evidence for a timeless universe, and shows why we still experience the world as intensely temporal. It is a book that strikes at the heart of modern physics. It casts doubt on Einstein's greatest contribution, the spacetime continuum, but also points to the solution of one of the great paradoxes of modern science, the chasm between classical and quantum physics. Indeed, Barbour argues that the holy grail of physicists--the unification of Einstein's general relativity with quantum mechanics--may well spell the end of time.
Barbour writes with remarkable clarity as he ranges from the ancient philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides, through the giants of science Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, to the work of the contemporary physicists John Wheeler, Roger Penrose, and Steven Hawking. Along the way he treats us to enticing glimpses of some of the mysteries of the universe, and presents intriguing ideas about multiple worlds, time travel, immortality, and, above all, the illusion of motion.
The End of Time is a vibrantly written and revolutionary book. It turns our understanding of reality inside-out.

No Payoff **
I read this book when it first came out, and I just finished reading it a second time. With any difficult subject you keep tabs of the arguments as best you can, hoping that by the end the pieces fall into place for you. And even if they don't you still hope to find out how it can be expected to influence the subject it covers. Sadly, neither of these came to pass. The author's "time capsules" seem to describe snapshots of the universe in absolute time, but they include not just what we would call our actual universe but any possible configuration of the universe. We experience the most probable of these time capsules. But if time is an illusion what does it matter to us? What changes? What insight does it provide? The book may have been better off if it were written in a more technical manner for experts or with more analogies and descriptions for lay readers.

No Payoff **

I read this book when it first came out, and I just finished reading it a second time. With any difficult subject you keep tabs of the arguments as best you can, hoping that by the end the pieces fall into place for you. And even if they don't you still hope to find out how it can be expected to influence the subject it covers. Sadly, neither of these came to pass. The author's "time capsules" seem to describe snapshots of the universe in absolute time, but they include not just what we would call our actual universe but any possible configuration of the universe. We experience the most probable of these time capsules. But if time is an illusion what does it matter to us? What changes? What insight does it provide? The book may have been better off if it were written in a more technical manner for experts or with more analogies and descriptions for lay readers.

History of the physics of time and some hypotheses, but no real breakthroughs. ****
I enjoyed this book for presenting most of the time-related physics in a single book. As others have pointed out, there's something "dense" about the visualizations and analogies used to explain the topics, but I found that somewhat useful for forcing me to look at the concepts again with fresh eyes. After reading the book, I think there are probably clearer ways to explain these concepts, and it just seems that J.B. was struggling to say what he means without math. Ultimately, there is very little, if anything, that's new in this book, and I think the author acknowledges as much through some of the anecdotes of his career as a physicist. o The Minkowski space of General Relativity treats the time dimension as equivalent to the space dimensions. o There is no present moment in physics, or a movement in time. Classical "block time" looks at the universe as a four-dimensional painting, and physics is the study of the relationships between the "swirls" in the painting. o Machian timeless classical physics is over 100 years old. o The Wheeler-DeWitt wavefunction is over configuration space not regular space and is not restricted to configurations with causal continuity. So as far as the quantum mechanical view of the universe, time continuity is not required. o His concept of "best-matching" is already implied in General Relativity, as he points out eventually in the book. o Time Reversal Invariance is nothing new either. There's no direction of time in physics. The asymmetry (physical arrow of time) only says that the universe has low entropy on the left side, and high-entropy on the right side (or vice-versa if you flip the picture). The universe can be studied from left to right or right to left. As Hawking points out, it's strange that we think the reverse of our psychological sensation of time is unfamiliar because that is exactly what is happening. And so, Hawking's famous question, "Why do we remember the past but not the future." At this point physics does fine without addressing the psychological features of time such as the present moment, its movement, direction, and apparent continuity, but eventually the physics may force the issue as quantum mechanics has already run into the problem of "people". For example, the Schrodinger and Wheeler-DeWitt equations have no need to drop out of the complex-number plane of superposition and into the real numbers. The physics is fine with the whole universe being in superposition of all the possibilities allowed by the wavefunction over configuration space. But people insist that we never experience superposition, and since observation is an essential part of physics, the observer comes into play. We end up having to force the wave function into a specific instance (observable state), which causes the physics to go into only one of the possible instances of the universe. That's a serious problem because QM can't tell us deterministically which one we'll find ourselves in when we make the measurement. So we have various kinds of quantum uncertainty like "quantum jitters" in the vacuum, etc. In fact, the Bell theorem points out that it is not possible to predict which universe will be measured by certain types of observations. So, I think, Julian Barbour's book has value in presenting the kind of problems we'll run into, as QM already has. For example, one of the problems he addresses is preserving causality when the Wheeler-DeWitt wavefunction doesn't preserve continuity of time, since it's a probability function over configuration space. He proposes that it'll probably turn out that the wavefunction allows only universes which do have a continuous causal link between their boundaries (the big bang and whatever is at the other end) since that is the kind of universe that we experience (above microscopic scales). He doesn't have an explanation though for how or why it would do that. I think the point of the "End of Time" title is that, just as the interpretations of quantum mechanics are there to comfort our perceptions but not necessary to the physics of it, so are our conceptions of time fitting to our perceptions, but not needed to understanding the physics of the universe. At this point, anyway. Overall, I'm glad I trudged through to the end, but mainly because on the physics side (rather than philosophical) there are few books which focus on the unanswered questions of the topic.

History of the physics of time and some hypotheses, but no real breakthroughs. ****

I enjoyed this book for presenting most of the time-related physics in a single book. As others have pointed out, there's something "dense" about the visualizations and analogies used to explain the topics, but I found that somewhat useful for forcing me to look at the concepts again with fresh eyes. After reading the book, I think there are probably clearer ways to explain these concepts, and it just seems that J.B. was struggling to say what he means without math.

Ultimately, there is very little, if anything, that's new in this book, and I think the author acknowledges as much through some of the anecdotes of his career as a physicist.

o The Minkowski space of General Relativity treats the time dimension as equivalent to the space dimensions.
o There is no present moment in physics, or a movement in time. Classical "block time" looks at the universe as a four-dimensional painting, and physics is the study of the relationships between the "swirls" in the painting.
o Machian timeless classical physics is over 100 years old.
o The Wheeler-DeWitt wavefunction is over configuration space not regular space and is not restricted to configurations with causal continuity. So as far as the quantum mechanical view of the universe, time continuity is not required.
o His concept of "best-matching" is already implied in General Relativity, as he points out eventually in the book.
o Time Reversal Invariance is nothing new either. There's no direction of time in physics. The asymmetry (physical arrow of time) only says that the universe has low entropy on the left side, and high-entropy on the right side (or vice-versa if you flip the picture). The universe can be studied from left to right or right to left. As Hawking points out, it's strange that we think the reverse of our psychological sensation of time is unfamiliar because that is exactly what is happening. And so, Hawking's famous question, "Why do we remember the past but not the future."

At this point physics does fine without addressing the psychological features of time such as the present moment, its movement, direction, and apparent continuity, but eventually the physics may force the issue as quantum mechanics has already run into the problem of "people". For example, the Schrodinger and Wheeler-DeWitt equations have no need to drop out of the complex-number plane of superposition and into the real numbers. The physics is fine with the whole universe being in superposition of all the possibilities allowed by the wavefunction over configuration space.

But people insist that we never experience superposition, and since observation is an essential part of physics, the observer comes into play. We end up having to force the wave function into a specific instance (observable state), which causes the physics to go into only one of the possible instances of the universe. That's a serious problem because QM can't tell us deterministically which one we'll find ourselves in when we make the measurement. So we have various kinds of quantum uncertainty like "quantum jitters" in the vacuum, etc. In fact, the Bell theorem points out that it is not possible to predict which universe will be measured by certain types of observations.

So, I think, Julian Barbour's book has value in presenting the kind of problems we'll run into, as QM already has. For example, one of the problems he addresses is preserving causality when the Wheeler-DeWitt wavefunction doesn't preserve continuity of time, since it's a probability function over configuration space. He proposes that it'll probably turn out that the wavefunction allows only universes which do have a continuous causal link between their boundaries (the big bang and whatever is at the other end) since that is the kind of universe that we experience (above microscopic scales). He doesn't have an explanation though for how or why it would do that.

I think the point of the "End of Time" title is that, just as the interpretations of quantum mechanics are there to comfort our perceptions but not necessary to the physics of it, so are our conceptions of time fitting to our perceptions, but not needed to understanding the physics of the universe. At this point, anyway.

Overall, I'm glad I trudged through to the end, but mainly because on the physics side (rather than philosophical) there are few books which focus on the unanswered questions of the topic.

End of Time *****
Challenging concept, but Barbour makes cogent arguments for time being a perception, not a reality of material existence. We can say the same for the substantial appearance of matter being a perception, not a reality. Matter is empty space woven through with countless patterns embedded in patterns of evolving relationships-but nowhere do we actually find any substance--this is not conjecture but fact of measurements beginning with Rutherford and ending at Fermilabs. Our perception of substance is real, but it is largely the electromagnetic force at work. So seeing time as a perception of change as we navigate through a limitless space of probabilities is at least plausible.

End of Time *****

Challenging concept, but Barbour makes cogent arguments for time being a perception, not a reality of material existence. We can say the same for the substantial appearance of matter being a perception, not a reality. Matter is empty space woven through with countless patterns embedded in patterns of evolving relationships-but nowhere do we actually find any substance--this is not conjecture but fact of measurements beginning with Rutherford and ending at Fermilabs. Our perception of substance is real, but it is largely the electromagnetic force at work. So seeing time as a perception of change as we navigate through a limitless space of probabilities is at least plausible.

Not sure what to make of this one.... interesting though *****
Usually change is a difficult thing to deal with. This book is about new ideas from a very peculiar point of view. I can't say I did follow each and every detail as I would like to. I got lost quite a few times and I felt like the whole thing is a joke and then got back to trying to tag along with the ideas presented. If you want to challenge your mind with a different approach about time then you may want to consider reading this book. Again, change of mind set is definitely a challenge.

Not sure what to make of this one.... interesting though *****

Usually change is a difficult thing to deal with. This book is about new ideas from a very peculiar point of view. I can't say I did follow each and every detail as I would like to. I got lost quite a few times and I felt like the whole thing is a joke and then got back to trying to tag along with the ideas presented. If you want to challenge your mind with a different approach about time then you may want to consider reading this book. Again, change of mind set is definitely a challenge.

Parmenides and Zeno resurrected *
I am always looking for a physics book that will enable me to evolve my perception of reality. This is not one of those books. Mr. Barbour makes an unconvincing attempt to convince the reader that a priori concepts such as causality and time are just an illusion. In the preface he states that he knows that most of the readers will not be able to finish the book, but if you read it to the end then all will be made clear. After suffering through the first 5 chapters, I skipped to the end and was convinced that he is wrong, and that time and causality are not an illusion.

Parmenides and Zeno resurrected *

I am always looking for a physics book that will enable me to evolve my perception of reality. This is not one of those books. Mr. Barbour makes an unconvincing attempt to convince the reader that a priori concepts such as causality and time are just an illusion. In the preface he states that he knows that most of the readers will not be able to finish the book, but if you read it to the end then all will be made clear. After suffering through the first 5 chapters, I skipped to the end and was convinced that he is wrong, and that time and causality are not an illusion.

The End of Time *****
I found the book to be amazing, and very thought provoking. Each chapter needs time to sink in, and in some places it should be re-read so that one understands the authors views on how we stand in the present time, and in past times.

The End of Time *****

I found the book to be amazing, and very thought provoking. Each chapter needs time to sink in, and in some places it should be re-read so that one understands the authors views on how we stand in the present time, and in past times.

Not suitable for the layman but some good deep thinking, ***
I may as well start by saying that I have a degree in Applied physics and I'm more exposed to this kind of thinking than the average reader. This book is more an excercise in deep thought than an enlightening read. I can't imagine anyone not finding some of the ideas and imaginings in this book hard to grasp unless they have a technical science background and are used to thinking in this manner. His overall view of time I disagree with but that doesn't mean I regret reading it. In fact I found it to be a very thought provoking book which is always a good thing. Because of the obscurity of the subject the author in no way really convinced me of his beliefs, since the arguments he puts forward are a mesh between his own eccentric thoughts about timelessness coupled with an underlying quantum mechanical structure to it. A process which would seem to be impossible to prove anyway. But still a eye-opening read. I'm giving it 3 stars because of the difficulty of understanding some of the material he puts across which I don't recommend for someone looking for a nice and easy interesting science read, the book is hard to get through compared to most popular science books. As a result of the awkward material presented I can't say that I found this book to be an exciting read either.

Not suitable for the layman but some good deep thinking, ***

I may as well start by saying that I have a degree in Applied physics and I'm more exposed to this kind of thinking than the average reader. This book is more an excercise in deep thought than an enlightening read.
I can't imagine anyone not finding some of the ideas and imaginings in this book hard to grasp unless they have a technical science background and are used to thinking in this manner. His overall view of time I disagree with but that doesn't mean I regret reading it. In fact I found it to be a very thought provoking book which is always a good thing.
Because of the obscurity of the subject the author in no way really convinced me of his beliefs, since the arguments he puts forward are a mesh between his own eccentric thoughts about timelessness coupled with an underlying quantum mechanical structure to it. A process which would seem to be impossible to prove anyway. But still a eye-opening read.
I'm giving it 3 stars because of the difficulty of understanding some of the material he puts across which I don't recommend for someone looking for a nice and easy interesting science read, the book is hard to get through compared to most popular science books.
As a result of the awkward material presented I can't say that I found this book to be an exciting read either.

Einsteins own view 'Time is a stubborn illusion' ****
I am reading this a present so apologies for writing a review before completeing this but it was irresistable. As readers currently may know Hawking had worked on the idea that time and space had no actual beigining because of quantum uncertainty when the universe was smaller than plancks length - so that the question of a beginning was not relevant. However Einstein had already gone a 'quantum leap further by saying "the concept of past present and future are an illusion and a stubborn one at that.....". Perhaps he was ahead of the game.Hence I was very interested in this book. I am looking forward to completeing this book as much of our confusion about the nature of reality is based upon our failure to confront issues about the nature of time and a healthy open minded study of this beguiling human perception is welcomed.

Einsteins own view 'Time is a stubborn illusion' ****

I am reading this a present so apologies for writing a review before completeing this but it was irresistable. As readers currently may know Hawking had worked on the idea that time and space had no actual beigining because of quantum uncertainty when the universe was smaller than plancks length - so that the question of a beginning was not relevant. However Einstein had already gone a 'quantum leap further by saying "the concept of past present and future are an illusion and a stubborn one at that.....". Perhaps he was ahead of the game.Hence I was very interested in this book. I am looking forward to completeing this book as much of our confusion about the nature of reality is based upon our failure to confront issues about the nature of time and a healthy open minded study of this beguiling human perception is welcomed.

Impossible theories **
Now don't get me wrong, I'm used to reading weird stuff. I try to keep an open mind as even the craziest sounding theory could turn out to be right and sometimes you can learn a lot about reading other people's views even if you don't agree with them. But believe me, the theory promoted in this book is the craziest I have yet come accross. The author says that our idea of time passing is a misperception of our brains. We are actually in a timeless universe, where all is still and unchanging. I really cannot see how a scientist can put forward such a theory for serious consideration. Although I struggled through the book, I could find nothing of any real interest, nor is there any possible practical application for such a theory if it could ever be tested/proved. All in all I think the author is just engaging in what I call an academic excerise, which is usually the preserve of philosphers. So unless you happen to like that sort of thing, I recommend you give the book a miss.

Impossible theories **

Now don't get me wrong, I'm used to reading weird stuff. I try to keep an open mind as even the craziest sounding theory could turn out to be right and sometimes you can learn a lot about reading other people's views even if you don't agree with them. But believe me, the theory promoted in this book is the craziest I have yet come accross.
The author says that our idea of time passing is a misperception of our brains. We are actually in a timeless universe, where all is still and unchanging.
I really cannot see how a scientist can put forward such a theory for serious consideration. Although I struggled through the book, I could find nothing of any real interest, nor is there any possible practical application for such a theory if it could ever be tested/proved. All in all I think the author is just engaging in what I call an academic excerise, which is usually the preserve of philosphers. So unless you happen to like that sort of thing, I recommend you give the book a miss.

An excellent discussion on the very foundation of Physics *****
I am highly impressed with this book. Dr. Barbour certainly provides a totally new perspective to the very fundamental concepts in Physics, and I think this is absolutely necessary to stimulate the thought process. I am sure a lot of leading researchers may not agree with some of the cocepts that he has introduced. But this is Science. No theory can survive unless its predictions are verified by observation. Dr. Barbour has provided lot of materials, which if found true will simply destroy his theory. It certainly is not a Philosophical discussion and I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Physics and enjoys pondering over the very fundamental questions of why the universe is as we see.

An excellent discussion on the very foundation of Physics *****

I am highly impressed with this book. Dr. Barbour certainly provides a totally new perspective to the very fundamental concepts in Physics, and I think this is absolutely necessary to stimulate the thought process.

I am sure a lot of leading researchers may not agree with some of the cocepts that he has introduced. But this is Science. No theory can survive unless its predictions are verified by observation. Dr. Barbour has provided lot of materials, which if found true will simply destroy his theory. It certainly is not a Philosophical discussion and I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Physics and enjoys pondering over the very fundamental questions of why the universe is as we see.

A little too arcane for the average reader ***
Boy, talk about a difficult book to get through. I've no doubt that Mr. Barbour knows what he's talking about, but I have to admit that I got thoroughly lost on more than one occasion. Just when I thought I had the thread of his argument pinned down, he embarked on a new more arcane path, and I was lost again. I have to admit I am not really a math-physics type person, but I do read a fair amount of literature for amateurs on the topic of theoretical physics, and time is one of those subjects that intrigues me the most. I'm not quite sure for whom the book is intended either, because although it lost me as a neophyte, I can't imagine that it would hold the attention of someone well grounded and/or professionally involved in physics; it has too many words and too few mathematical formulae. In all though, I found the concept of time as a, more or less, static collection of instants all shuffled together like playing cards or like the frames of a 35mm film strip a provocative one. I just can't help feeling, though, that there is something significant missing in the author's argument. I'm sure he would insist that it is just the overwhelming psychological experience of time "flowing" that is throwing me off, but when I think of his perspective on time and history, I find the only way it makes sense is if I stand outside of the system to see how it might work. I find it difficult to see how the information about past experiences can be passed on to my memory in any given instant without some sort of connection between all the instants of which "I" am a part. That however would make consciousness a unique and special entity, which I find difficult to accept. Although consciousness has sometimes been claimed to be a factor in generating Newtonian reality from quantum "observations," I think there has been sufficient discussion that refutes it. Again, I found the book way over my head, but I hope to reread it on another occasion with hope of achieving better understanding. Definitely not a book to start with if you're not heavily into physics.

A little too arcane for the average reader ***

Boy, talk about a difficult book to get through. I've no doubt that Mr. Barbour knows what he's talking about, but I have to admit that I got thoroughly lost on more than one occasion. Just when I thought I had the thread of his argument pinned down, he embarked on a new more arcane path, and I was lost again. I have to admit I am not really a math-physics type person, but I do read a fair amount of literature for amateurs on the topic of theoretical physics, and time is one of those subjects that intrigues me the most. I'm not quite sure for whom the book is intended either, because although it lost me as a neophyte, I can't imagine that it would hold the attention of someone well grounded and/or professionally involved in physics; it has too many words and too few mathematical formulae. In all though, I found the concept of time as a, more or less, static collection of instants all shuffled together like playing cards or like the frames of a 35mm film strip a provocative one. I just can't help feeling, though, that there is something significant missing in the author's argument. I'm sure he would insist that it is just the overwhelming psychological experience of time "flowing" that is throwing me off, but when I think of his perspective on time and history, I find the only way it makes sense is if I stand outside of the system to see how it might work. I find it difficult to see how the information about past experiences can be passed on to my memory in any given instant without some sort of connection between all the instants of which "I" am a part. That however would make consciousness a unique and special entity, which I find difficult to accept. Although consciousness has sometimes been claimed to be a factor in generating Newtonian reality from quantum "observations," I think there has been sufficient discussion that refutes it. Again, I found the book way over my head, but I hope to reread it on another occasion with hope of achieving better understanding. Definitely not a book to start with if you're not heavily into physics.

I Am Not Here *****
In our limited fashion we all approach this from the realm of existence. Platonia is only an architectural representation of a nonexistence. I would like mr. barbour to take his theory to the next level. Hello, Mr. Barbour? Are you out there? That is a rhetorical question...of course you're not.

I Am Not Here *****

In our limited fashion we all approach this from the realm of existence. Platonia is only an architectural representation of a nonexistence. I would like mr. barbour to take his theory to the next level. Hello, Mr. Barbour? Are you out there? That is a rhetorical question...of course you're not.

Provocative but Flawed ***
Oddly, the most succinct and lucid statement of Barbour's theory comes, not from him, but from a reader whose email he quotes in the footnotes at the end of the book: "All moments are simultaneous ... My conscious mind feeds them to me in a linear sequence strung out with a bunch of other moments in an illusion of a continuous flow of action." (p. 340, trade paperback edition) Barbour comments that this reader's views are "often very close to my own position." I see two problems here. First, the hypothesis seems essentially solipsistic - it's not clear if it can ever be tested, proved, or disproved. Second, how can "my conscious mind feed these moments to me" in a world of total stasis, a world where everything is frozen and motionless? Either consciousness itself is exempt from the timelessness of the rest of the system (but Barbour seems to think it isn't) or consciousness, being part of a timeless reality, is frozen and unable to engage in any processes - including the process of "feeding" moments to me. In other words, if time is an illusion created by a filmstrip of single frames being run in our heads, then what is running the movie, and how can the movie run at all when nothing can move? The theory seems to raise more questions than it answers. Still, questions are always valuable, so - three stars!

Provocative but Flawed ***

Oddly, the most succinct and lucid statement of Barbour's theory comes, not from him, but from a reader whose email he quotes in the footnotes at the end of the book: "All moments are simultaneous ... My conscious mind feeds them to me in a linear sequence strung out with a bunch of other moments in an illusion of a continuous flow of action." (p. 340, trade paperback edition) Barbour comments that this reader's views are "often very close to my own position."

I see two problems here. First, the hypothesis seems essentially solipsistic - it's not clear if it can ever be tested, proved, or disproved. Second, how can "my conscious mind feed these moments to me" in a world of total stasis, a world where everything is frozen and motionless? Either consciousness itself is exempt from the timelessness of the rest of the system (but Barbour seems to think it isn't) or consciousness, being part of a timeless reality, is frozen and unable to engage in any processes - including the process of "feeding" moments to me. In other words, if time is an illusion created by a filmstrip of single frames being run in our heads, then what is running the movie, and how can the movie run at all when nothing can move?

The theory seems to raise more questions than it answers. Still, questions are always valuable, so - three stars!

Complex concept but I had no problem following conceptually *****
Does time really exist? What if time were actually an illusion? If time did not really exist them quantum physics and classical physics could be united into a unified theory. On the other hand, if time does not exist then what are we to make of theories such as a space-time continuum? In this text Julian Barbour clearly analyses the concept of time and puts forth the current evidence for its non-existence. The arguments are compelling, the logic strong, and the results convincing - or at least it is convincing enough to consider it as a real possibility. Julian Barbour is a theoretical physicist who takes this complex and counter-intuitive concept and puts it forth in layman's terms. This is a highly recommended book for anyone interested in theoretical physics and how it is changing our view of our world. "The End of Time" is sure to become an authoritative reference for any discussion on the existence of time.

Complex concept but I had no problem following conceptually *****

Does time really exist? What if time were actually an illusion? If time did not really exist them quantum physics and classical physics could be united into a unified theory. On the other hand, if time does not exist then what are we to make of theories such as a space-time continuum? In this text Julian Barbour clearly analyses the concept of time and puts forth the current evidence for its non-existence. The arguments are compelling, the logic strong, and the results convincing - or at least it is convincing enough to consider it as a real possibility. Julian Barbour is a theoretical physicist who takes this complex and counter-intuitive concept and puts it forth in layman's terms. This is a highly recommended book for anyone interested in theoretical physics and how it is changing our view of our world. "The End of Time" is sure to become an authoritative reference for any discussion on the existence of time.