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Entering time as a subject search at the Minnesota
state library system creates a list of over 3,000 books. It's a colossal pile of paper,
requiring immense energy to create and read. There are
mathematical, psychological, sociological, philosophical, cosmological, theological
descriptions of time. They describe how to calculate and accommodate our way through time –– if only we had enough time.
Tour of Time is a digest of about 30 books, exactly which ones I couldn't
say. My reading list did not survive the transition from that time to this time, but it's
of little consequence. Much of what's written is repetition of earlier repetitions.
One author, J. T. Fraser, stands apart from the crowd. He wrote four books on time,
greatly influencing Tour of Time. He's a towering intellect who's read
much, and developed his own ideas about time. A listing of his work follows:
The Genesis and Evolution of
Time: a Critique of Interpretation in Physics Published 1982 by Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press.
Of Time, Passion, and Knowledge: Reflections on the Strategy of Existence
Published 1975 by Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Time As Conflict: a Scientific and Humanistic Study, Published 1978 by: Basel
[etc.]: Birkh user.
Time, the Familiar Stranger, Published 1987 by Amherst: University of Massachusetts
Press.
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I recommend Time, the Familiar Stranger as being
the most elegant in presentation.
Isaac Asimov wrote The Clock We Live On, published 1959, by London, New York,
Abelard-Schuman, a clear history of time keeping systems.
Gary Zukav wrote The Dancing Wu Li Masters: an Overview of the New
Physics, published 1980, by Toronto; New York: Bantam Books. It's
an excellent presentation by a non-physicist on sub atomic reality, the
world of probable maybes that supports our concreteness.
Also worth mentioning is Benjamin Whorf who wrote Language,
Thought and Reality, published 1956, by Cambridge, M. I. T. Press. He
was an engineer by training, fire inspector by profession and linguist
by avocation. He studied the Hopi language, and it's relation to their
sense of time and way of being.
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