On Time

The Physics That Makes the Universe Tick

From quantum physicist, New York Times bestselling author, and BBC host Jim Al-Khalili, essential insights into the meaning and fundamental nature of time

While we have come a long way toward deciphering the laws of the universe, many physicists still regard time to be one of the greatest unsolved mysteries. On Time provides answers to the questions about time that philosophers and scientists have been asking for millennia, such as whether it has a beginning and an end, why it only points toward the future and not the past, whether it can be stretched and squeezed or even reversed, and whether it is even real.

In this mind-altering book, Jim Al-Khalili tackles the enduring problems of time head-on, carefully examining them across the three central pillars of physicsquantum mechanics, general relativity, and thermodynamics. He shows how, in each domain, time ca