Time reborn

Physicist Lee Smolin contends that time is not an illusion to be explained away but a basic part of reality. He questions the many modern models of the universe that treat time as secondary or absent, and he suggests that the laws of nature may themselves change over time rather than being fixed for all eternity.

The book, subtitled From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe, begins with the difficulties facing contemporary physics and cosmology. From there Smolin follows his argument into territory beyond the laboratory, asking how a different understanding of time might shape economic thinking, social choices and our response to climate change.

Written by a theoretical physicist and a member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, the book is aimed at general readers curious about physics, cosmology and the philosophy of time.