The Reading List

The Future of Spacetime

Hawking, Stephen, et. al.The Future of Spacetime, W.W. Norton & Co. 2002. ISBN 0-393-02022-3.

by Diane Rhodes

This is a new sometimes-column about books on science, astronomy and other space topics.

First up is The Future of Spacetime, a collection of essays dealing with implications of time travel, and other research by some very interesting people. Before you go back in time and prevent your great-grandparents from meeting, you might want to read this! I came across it at the Library, but wasn't able to check it out, since it was "reserved" for someone else. Had to plead to look it over at all!

This is a collection of essays on where the latest developments and research on black holes, gravitational waves and time travel just might take us in the future. These topics often seem to pass back and forth from science to science fiction and offer some intriguing possiblities for our future. The writers are some of the astonomers and physicists at the leading edges of their fields. The essays are written in an easily accessible manner, and the book includes some illustrations.

The Future of Spacetime brings you these essays:

An Introduction to Spacetime Physics by Richard Price
Chronology Protection by Stephen Hawking
Can We Change the Past? by Igor Novikov
Speculations about the Future by Kip S. Thorne
On the Popularization of Science by Timothy Ferris
The Physicist as Novelist by Alan Lightman

I reserved this at the Library, so next time it's in, it will be my turn.