How to Build a Time Machine Paperback – March 25, 2003

I purchased this book for my 12 year. He's taken an interest in Quantum physics. He has kept such an interest in this book I am beyond amazed. He keeps it with him with his notebook and dictionary handy. There are some words he comes across that he's not familiar with which is completely understandable. This isn't a book for a 12 year old. It truly explains the concept of time travel not as a fantasy but as what you would have to do in order to achieve such a goal.

It's a start for time travel for beginners and dummies and I think I enjoy the book here you know

I enjoyed this book immensely, I can’t go out and assemble my time machine soon but there was a lot of great information in this book. It will make you think and that is what moves everything forward.

The book was exactly what I expected and very helpful illustrating my points about this subject to my son.

The kids liked the book. Arrived clean, undamaged,and promptly.

It’s a wonderful book. I’d call it physics for artists. How to build a time machine makes physics totally accessible and deeply fascinating for even the least mathematically inclined. Just a lovely book.

very good overview of the issues involved explained in layman's terms

I prefer this book slightly more than Brian Clegg's book by the same title. It introduces an essentially scientific view of time travel, and in that respect is easily imitated, and not entirely without merit. I found the content, because of the scientific view, somewhat boring and familiar.

the writer is a well informed physicist and cosmologist. He breaks down complex theories, yet discusses these concepts with the reader, on equal terms.I came away, understanding intriguing concepts about time and space, feeling a bit wiser and all the better for it.

The book was very fine

Still have to wait for technology to catch up before I become a time traveller

Dies ist eine kurze Abhandlung zum Phänomen Zeit und der Frage, ob man in der Zeit reisen kann.Super zu lesen, gut zu verstehen und hochgradig interessant. Ja, es gibt Wormholes und ja man könnte – rein theoretisch durch sie reisen. Dazu braucht man allerding einige Vorkehrungen, Antimaterie und alle Energie des Universums. Was soll’s, allein die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema ist spannend und Davis der Autor dafür, das Geschehen einem näher zu bringen.

When the mathematician Rudolf Ruker* asked Godel, who told him he believed man would one day travel freely in time, about the Grandfather paradox Godel, a man of few words, only replied "There will be no paradox". Davies presents Godel's model of the universe along with many other plausible physical approaches to time travel. Though there are many Philosophical problems with time travel, which Davies lucidly present, yet it has not been possible to find plausible physical constraints other than by ad hoc paraphrasing of prohibitions. Davies lucidly presents many of these constraints thereby also introducing his readers to many areas of physics. He appears to believe that surely one of these ad hoc principles will eventually acquire some physical plausibility. On the other hand to appreciate what Godel, the man of few words, might have had in mind consider the following. Godel's universe does not allow for a universal time coordinate. The set of events only allows partial time orderings i.e. ordering along the path of any observer. To appreciate the consequences we may consider the following parable. Our time traveler wishing for whatever reason to painlessly end his life and being an avid science fiction reader, aware of the Grandfather paradox but not wanting to harm his brother or sister, he decides to return to the time of his childhood to shoot his childhood self. However, the only effect of the shot is a small recoil since Locally, even in Godel's universe, Newtonian physics holds. I.e. there is no Newtonian way for him to disappear. Unfortunately, Nature's Laws aren't the only Laws applicable here. Society's Laws dictate that our traveler will spend the rest of his life behind bars for killing a child and, thus, unable to return to the 21st Century as Godel's universe would allow. We will assume that our time traveler presents a negligible perturbertion to the large scale structure of the Godel universe. Though these events our traveler encounters on his trip share Godel coordinates with events he recalls from his past they are New Events. To our traveler they occur in the 21st Century. To those whom our traveler has met on his journey the events occur in the 20th Century. ( Likewise, if our traveler were to return to an earlier time in the 21st Century than when he left, his memories of the intervening period will not be shared by those greeting him; nor would he share the memories of those who saw him off on his journey. ) Only events along a particular path are relevant. Such events are time ordered w.r.t. the particular path. As Godel said, there is No Paradox! * R. Ruker, "Infinity and the Mind", pp.170 - 181, Bantum Books, 1983 ISBN 0-553-23433-1