In Search of Lost Time

Do you know… that black holes can affect time? that Stonehenge is a giant calendar? that the Oracle Bones of the North China Plain predict the phases of the moon? that the Pyramids are giant compasses? how Jonathan Swift knew that Mars had two moons when he wrote Gulliver's Travels? that the effects of black holes are described in the story of Alice in Wonderland? that an atomic reactor existed 2 billion years ago in Equatorial Africa? that an electron on the other side of the galaxy can deflect a billiard ball? that Schrödingers cat is both alive and dead? Derek York fathoms these and many other mysteries of time and space in In Search of Lost Time. A reflection of York's obsession with time and its measurement, the book discusses the mind-bending universe of the special and general theories of relativity, the ghostly world of quantum mechanics, and the unpredictable haunts of chaos. It explores the pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge, and the South China plain; the universities of Cambridge, McGill, and Chicago; the Patent Office in Berne; and back to the Ethiopian desert on the banks of the Awash River. Companions to share and illuminate the path range from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland to J.B. Priestley's Dangerous Corner. It also presents the father of master-spy Kim Philby in the Empty Quarter of Arabia, the fantasist Velikovsky in the clouds, and Newton, Darwin, Rutherford, Einstein and the great Earth scientists of this century who fathomed the depths of lost time and discovered the age of the Earth. Written in an engaging, nontechnical style, this book will delight and amaze all who encounter it.