The Clock Mirage: Our Myth of Measured Time

Mazur (Fluke: The Math and Myth of Coincidence), a Marlboro College professor emeritus of mathematics, takes readers on a thought-provoking voyage through various scientific and philosophical questions surrounding time. Ambitiously attempting to “answer the question of what time is,” Mazur begins by reviewing how it has been measured throughout history, starting with the Babylonian empire, which introduced hours, and ending in the present, where sports results differing by hundredths of a second can decide winners and losers. The book then shifts to ideas about time, ranging from the Greek philosopher Zeno, who pictured a series of “discrete units, like a string of beads,” through Newton’s theory of “absolute” time existing independently of external factors such as human perception, to Einstein’s physics-based contention that no distinction exists between past, present, and future. Mazur grounds these complex theories with “interludes” concerning how time is experienced by different people—for example, prison inmates, who inhabit an “eternity of ceased time,” or airline pilots, for whom flight-time mostly moves slowly, but accelerates during crises. Mazur’s stimulating exploration leaves his audience with the intriguing suggestion that “time is possibly nothing more than an updating of the present, a memory of the past, and an anticipation of the future.” (Apr.)