From Publishers Weekly

Newton (What Makes Nature Tick) explains the premise of his slim volume in a single sentence in the introduction: "This book is about the rhythm of time, how that rhythm was finally regulated by Galileo's pendulum, the impact the oscillations of the pendulum had on our perception of that rhythm, and how these oscillations were later found to manifest themselves in many other natural phenomena." The book's eight chapters touch on a wealth of topics: circadian rhythms in living organisms; the conceptualization and design of calendars; the construction of clocks, from sundials and water clocks to those powered by pendula and cesium; and the development of physics from Isaac Newton to modern quantum electrodynamics. Indeed, the array is too broad for the disparate elements to come together and form a coherent whole. Additionally, the range of material here is unlikely to be fully satisfying to most readers; the basic history of science will be accessible to the nonspecialist but not compelling for the scientist science buff, while the highly technical mathematical sections will certainly cut off the general reader. Anyone wanting to understand how humans first defined time and how it became systematically measured might want to turn to the relatively recent Einstein's Clocks and Poincaré's Maps, by Peter Galison. 34 photos and illus.
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From

Physicist Newton, editor of the Journal of Mathematical Physics, here addresses nonexperts on the subject of time--specifically, the measurement of its passage. The range of things that measure time, from living creatures to atomic clocks, brackets Newton's intriguing narrative of time's connections, in the middle of which stands Galileo's famous discovery about pendulums. They exhibit isochronism, that is, a fixed period of oscillation, which is important, as Newton explains, because it offered a principle for accurately measuring the duration of a unit of time. The ensuing search for precise oscillators, from mechanical pendulums to vibrating atoms of quartz, drives his story forward. En route, Newton touches on both the greatest names in physics and clockmakers, such as John Harrison, inventor of the seagoing chronometer and the star of Dava Sobel's Longitude (1995), thus fruitfully entwining the fundamental discoveries of science with the progress of timekeeping technology. Science buffs will delight in the links Newton makes in this readable tour of how humanity marks time. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.