About Time: Cosmology, Time and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang

Adam Frank

Sep 2011 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by David Drummond

About this audiobook

The Big Bang is all but dead, and we do not yet know what will replace it. Our universe's "beginning" is at an end. What does this have to do with us here on Earth? Our lives are about to be dramatically shaken again-as altered as they were with the invention of the clock, the steam engine, the railroad, the radio and the Internet. In About Time, Adam Frank explains how the texture of our lives changes along with our understanding of the universe's origin. Since we awoke to self-consciousness fifty thousand years ago, our lived experience of time-from hunting and gathering to the development of agriculture to the industrial revolution to the invention of Outlook calendars-has been transformed and rebuilt many times. But the latest theories in cosmology-time with no beginning, parallel universes, eternal inflation-are about to send us in a new direction. Time is both our grandest and most intimate conception of the universe. Many books tell the story, recounting the progress of scientific cosmology. Frank tells the story of humanity's deepest question-when and how did everything begin?-alongside the story of how human beings have experienced time. He looks at the way our engagement with the world-our inventions, our habits and more-has allowed us to discover the nature of the universe and how those discoveries, in turn, inform our daily experience. This astounding book will change the way we think about time and how it affects our lives.

About the author

Adam Frank is a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester. He is the cofounder of NPR's 13.7: Cosmos and Culture blog, as well as being an on-air commentator for All Things Considered and a contributor to the New York Times. He lives in Rochester, New York.

David Drummond has narrated over seventy audiobooks for Tantor, in genres ranging from current political commentary to historical nonfiction, from fantasy to military, and from thrillers to humor. He has garnered multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as an Audie Award nomination. Visit him at drummondvoice.com.