Popular Science Review - Introducing Time

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Review - Introducing Time - Craig Callender & Ralph Edney

It is almost impossible to rate these relentlessly hip books - they are pure marmite*. The huge Introducing ... series (about 80 books covering everything from Quantum Theory to Islam), previously known as ... for Beginners, puts across the message in a style that owes as much to Terry Gilliam and pop art as it does to popular science. Pretty well every page features large graphics with speech bubbles that are supposed to emphasise the point.

Does it work in practice? The result is variable, not surprisingly as the books have different authors, though it has to be said that the concept is magnificently brave and innovative, whether or not the outcome is good. In the case of the Quantum Theory book, the outcome is surprisingly good.

One of the reason it works so well in this kind of presentation is that it's very much a crossover book between science and philosophy. After all, in the end we can go on about time as long as we like (whatever than means), but we don't really know what it is!

Although just occasionally you have to re-read a passage when you get mired down, on the whole Craig Callender does an excellent job of leading the reader through the twists and turns of tensed and non-tensed time. He starts off gently with clocks, gets us through the basic philosophical arguments, then plunges into the implications of relativity (both special and general), and spends a long time (perhaps a little too long) on time travel. What's great about the book is it really does get you to think about a subject that it's intensely easy to take for granted. Truly thought provoking. Sometimes the illustrations are very valuable, but I think they could have been clearer when dealing with lightcones, and in other parts of the book, where they seem to represent philiosophical conversations between 50s housewives chopping vegetables, or cartoon animals, they are just strange.

*Marmite? If you are puzzled by this assessment, you probably aren't from the UK. Marmite is a yeast-based product (originally derived from beer production waste) that is spread on bread/toast. It's something people either love or hate, so much so that the company has run very successful TV ad campaigns showing people absolutely hating the stuff...

Read about the companion volumes Introducing Chaos and Introducing Relativity.

Note - version with new cover available in UK from September 2004:

Only in paperback.

Reviewed by Brian Clegg

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