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Set your clock back?

Author:  James Gleick

Time Travel coverTo when would you go?  If a device could take you anywhere in time, what would be your destination?  Ever since H.G. Wells published The Time Machine in 1895, the question has engaged countless imaginations.  In Time Travel, celebrated journalist and science historian James Gleick explores the reality and mystery behind the concept.  It’s a wide ranging work, very much indebted to Wells’ ground breaking idea.

H.G. Wells photo

H.G. Wells in 1920

Appropriately so, in a book about time, Gleick starts at the beginning with the backstory behind H.G. Wells’ famous novel, going on to delve into much of the science fiction that the work spawned.  As he did in his acclaimed biographies of Isaac Newton and Richard Feynman, the author casts a wide net, presenting an astonishingly extensive review of time related literature and media from Jorge Luis Borges to Dr. Who.

He also investigates much of the science behind time.  Ever science Einstein turned the world on its head, creating the concept of four-dimensional spacetime, scientists have been trying to make sense of time.  But, as Gleick points out, it’s almost comically difficult to define what the concept even means.  Despite these definitional obstacles, plenty of smart science types have thought a lot about

the possibility or impossibility of time travel and Gleick samples many of their deeper thoughts, weaving a mesmerizing and imaginative dialog.

James Gleick photo

James Gleick in 2016.

The author also explores why modern humans seem so intrigued by the idea.  Is the desire for time travel just a way to escape our current existence, or is it actually something deeper?  A quest for immortality?  An ever present desire to fix the past?  And if the future is out there, waiting for us to visit, what does that say about free will?  Is the future already set in stone?  Or is it contingent upon countless variables, decisions and utter randomness?

A remarkably bold historical approach to something that may never even exist, Time Travel is thoroughly engaging.  Assembling a cohesive and intriguing read from copious fascinating sources, Gleick displays an impressive mastery of the topic.  I don’t think it constitutes a spoiler to point out that it’s impossible to travel back in time and kill your grandfather, but then again it’s hard to really know for sure.

— D. Driftless

Wells photo by George Charles Beresford/author photo by the author (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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