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Time Reborn

Time Reborn
TimeRebornBookCover298x300.jpg
Hardcover edition
Author Lee Smolin
Country United States
Language English
Subject Physics
Genre Non-fiction
Publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date
April 23, 2013
Media type Print, e-book, audiobook
Pages 352 pp
ISBN
Preceded by The Trouble with Physics (2006)
Followed by The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time (2014)

Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe is the fourth non-fiction book by the American theoretical physicist Lee Smolin.

Smolin argues for what he calls a revolutionary view that time is real, in contrast to existing scientific orthodoxy which holds that time is merely a "stubbornly persistent illusion" (Einstein's words). Smolin hypothesizes that the very laws of physics are not fixed, but that they actually evolve over time.

Time Reborn is divided into two parts: Part I describes established physics and its history from the time of Plato and the main established ideas, Newtonian physics (and Leibniz' philosophical views that countered Newton's e.g. on background dependent physics and his religious justification), Einstein's special- and general- relativity, and quantum mechanics. Part II describes Smolin's views (his "future" for physics, relying on his and ideas of others) on why these all are slightly wrong, that is, the need to reestablish time as fundamental (and probably space as non-fundamental, rather than vice versa, that was Einstein's view) through e.g. one idea, shape dynamics, a duality of Einstein's general relativity, that does that.

Smolin argues for what he calls a revolutionary view that time is real, in contrast to existing scientific orthodoxy which holds that time is merely a "stubbornly persistent illusion" (Einstein's words). Smolin reasons that physicists have improperly rejected the reality of time because they confuse their mathematical models—which are timeless but deal in abstractions that do not exist—with reality. Smolin hypothesizes instead that the very laws of physics are not fixed, but that they actually evolve over time.

Smolin asserts that overturning the existing orthodoxy is the best hope for finding solutions to contemporary physics problems, such as bringing gravity into line with the rest of the currently accepted models, the nature of the quantum world and its unification with spacetime and cosmology. Outside science, Smolin asserts his views have important implications for human agency, and on how our social, political, economic and environmental decisions affect our future, Smolin saying that contrary to deterministic philosophies derived from conventional physics, humans do have the power to exert control over climate change, our economic system and our technology.


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