Space, Time, and Einstein: An Introduction

An enlightening introduction to the philosophy of time and space. J.B. Kennedy offers an introduction to one of the liveliest and most popular fields in philosophy - time and space - aimed specifically at a beginning readership with no background in philosophy or science. He goes to the philosophical heart of the issues without recourse to jargon, mathematics, or logical formulas and introduces Einstein's revolutionary ideas in a clear and simple way, as well as concepts and arguments of other relevant philosophers, both ancient and modern. Current debates in philosophy and physics are also handled with exemplary clarity and Kennedy is able to provide readers with a real sense of where we have come from and where we are going. The writing is engaging, lively, and entertaining and serves to introduce the subject to beginning students as well as providing a clear statement of the "state of the debate" for a popular science readership. Kennedy covers such topics as Einstein's special and general relativity, how to build an atom bomb, the four-dimensional universe, the possibility of time travel, the impossibility of motion, whether space curves, the big bang, black holes, and the idea of inflationary and accelerating universes.