Time Travel: A History by James Gleick

Best Books of 2016 BOSTON GLOBE * THE ATLANTIC From the acclaimed bestselling author of The Information and Chaos comes this enthralling history of time travel—a concept that has preoccupied physicists and storytellers over the course of the last century. James Gleick delivers a mind-bending exploration of time travel—from its origins in literature and science to its influence on our understanding of time itself. Gleick vividly explores physics, technology, philosophy, and art as each relates to time travel and tells the story of the concept's cultural evolutions—from H.G. Wells to Doctor Who, from Proust to Woody Allen. He takes a close look at the porous boundary between science fiction and modern physics, and, finally, delves into what it all means in our own moment in time—the world of the instantaneous, with its all-consuming present and vanishing future.

Minus one star for not discussing the best two time travel movies ever: (1) Primer and (2) Hot Tub Time Machine.

James Gleick explores time travel as a cultural idea through literature and film, from The Time Machine to Groundhog Day, with a little philosophy and physics thrown in for good measure. Much of the book is focused on how the understanding of time has changed through... time, concentrating particularly on how ideas of chronological and historical time developed in the nineteenth century and paved the way for future philosophers to posit why time exists and how it functions. The chapters about the complicated science behind time travel were easy to understand - always a bonus - and the bits about Kurt Godel were my fave.

“I gave a party for time-travelers, but I didn't send out the invitations until after the party. I sat there a long time, but no one came.” –Stephen Hawking

Just not interesting enough. Who cares what fiction writers thought about a hypothetical concept hundred years ago? Only worthwhile idea: the concept of time travel is a modern invention.

Gleick's ‘Time Travel' includes one scene with a physicist rolling his eyes wearily, explaining that, yes, time travel is possible in the case of black holes, but that he would rather not talk about it. Unfortunately I felt like that guy when I was reading this book.

There are only so many times I can read that time is like ‘a river', or read a paragraph-length biography of someone's life in order to support their two sentences of historical contribution. The historical viewpoint, too, gives the story a sort of interrupted flow. Sure, it makes a lot of sense to ‘start from the beginning' but I wish that the physical approaches (time as a field, as a measure of entropy, as relative or absolute) were enumerated rather than unveiled one by one, deep in mostly unnecessary context.

This might sound like a review written by some guy who heard about time travel and wants a time machine as soon as possible, with as little interference as possible. And maybe I've worn out my nonfiction reading ability by overdosing on these mile-deep scientific/literary history books. But anyway, Time Travel seemed, well, like a lackluster use of my time, a book that tried to be too much in and of itself and that never really developed into anything or built on itself, perhaps like our thinking about time travel itself.