How to Build a Time Machine Hardcover - 2002

by Paul Davies; Paul Davies

With his rare knack for making cutting-edge theoretical science effortlessly accessible, world-renowned physicist Paul Davies has won a devoted readership with his bestselling books The Fifth Miracle, About Time, and God and the New Physics. Now Davies tackles an issue that has intrigued humankind for centuries-is time travel possible?

The answer, insists Davies, is definitely yes-once you iron out a few kinks in the space-time continuum. With tongue planted seriously in cheek, Davies explains that to visit the future, all you need is a little help from gravity and a spaceship that can travel just under the speed of light. As for returning to the past, the best bet is to find a convenient black hole equipped with a traversible worm hole-though if you're not careful you may find yourself sucked into a one-way journey to nowhere. Finally, having brilliantly laid the theoretical foundation, Davies sets out a four-stage process for assembling the time machine and getting it to work. He also addresses the ticklish question of why, if time travel is really feasible, we're not swarmed with time tourists visiting us from the future.

Wildly inventive and theoretically sound, How to Build a Time Machine is creative science at its best-illuminating, entertaining, thought provoking, and fascinating in every way.