Time

From: Tim May <tcmay.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 11:31:02 -0700

The September issue of "Scientific American" is usually/always devoted
to some special theme. This issue is ostensibly devoted to "Time" and
problems associated with it. Articles include some physics articles,
some perception/psychology articles, and one or two on clocks and
timepieces.

Sad to say, "Sci Am" has fallen far from its once lofty perch. Flipping
through the issue at a boostore, I found the first _half_ of the thin
magazine devoted to advertising, general news, and a special
20-plus-page insert devoted to Italy and its industries, blah blah.

Once the articles started, they were of course no longer the meaty,
detailed dozen or so solid articles. (Used to be the special September
issues were thicker than usual!) The articles were short, filled with
colorful graphics (but with less content than the SciAm graphics of the
1950s-recent), but carried little information.

The articles may be of use in introducing people to notions like "block
time," but the entire idea is covered in just a few paragraphs. Not much
to go on.

Paul Davies does one of the physics articles on time...nothing in his
article not covered in much more detail in the books by Huw Price,
Julian Barbour, Kip Thorne, and others.

I didn't buy the issue.

Meanwhile, my study of lattice and order continues. I'll say more in the
future (if it exists, that is).


--Tim May
(.sig for Everything list background)
Corralitos, CA. Born in 1951. Retired from Intel in 1986.
Current main interest: category and topos theory, math, quantum reality,
cosmology.
Background: physics, Intel, crypto, Cypherpunks
Received on Sat Aug 31 2002 - 11:32:02 PDT