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"You are reading the word 'now' right now. But what does that mean? What makes the ephemeral moment 'now' so special? Its enigmatic character has bedeviled philosophers, priests, and modern-day physicists from Augustine to Einstein and beyond. Einstein showed that the flow of time is affected by both velocity and gravity, yet he despaired at his failure to explain the meaning of 'now.' Equally puzzling: Why does time flow? Some physicists have given up trying to understand, and call the flow of time an illusion, but the eminent experimental physicist Richard A. Muller protests. He says physics should explain reality, not deny it. In Now, Muller does more than poke holes in past ideas; he crafts his own revolutionary theory, one that makes testable predictions. He begins by laying out--with the refreshing clarity that made Physics for Future Presidents so successful--a firm and remarkably clear explanation of the physics building blocks of his theory: relativity, entropy, entanglement, antimatter, and the Big Bang. With the stage then set, he reveals a startling way forward. Muller points out that the standard Big Bang theory explains the ongoing expansion of the universe as the continuous creation of new space. He argues that time is also expanding and that the leading edge of the new time is what we experience as 'now.' This thought-provoking vision has remarkable implications for some of our biggest questions not only in physics but also in philosophy--including the ongoing debate about the reality of free will. Moreover, his theory is testable. Muller's monumental work will spark major debate about the most fundamental assumptions of our universe, and may crack one of the longest-standing enigmas in physics."--Dust jacket.… (more)
User reviews
His thinking style is engaging, but his writing does not keep up with his rapid-fire jumps from topic to topic. His summaries of complex quantum theory for pedestrian non-physicist rubes like myself are obviously well-intentioned, but didn’t quite do the trick for me; all the same I appreciated the intention to explain rather than dismiss material as too complex for the common audience. I’d agree with other reviewers that his actual addressing of the topic of “Now,” postponed until the last 6 pages of the book, was inadequate.
The most significant part of the book, the idea on which he built his ideas of experiencing “now,” was the work he had done at Berkeley. He observed precisely identical particles behaving differently, and deduced that because statistical and quantum physics cannot predict different behaviors for identical particles, they cannot predict the full future, and free will is therefore possible. His history of the philosophical and scientific analyses of time were interesting, and could have been expanded into an interesting book in their own right. This also would’ve provided a more solid foundation for the last two chapters, which explain his personal views on free will, which seemed a bit out of place after several hundred pages on specific physics theories.