A fantastic journey to the frontiers of physics. Also includes information on black holes, cosmic strings, David Deutsch, Albert Einstein, energy, Pierre Gassendi, Kurt Godel, J. Richard Gott, gravity, Alan Guth, Stephen Hawking, Charles Howard Hinton, interstellar travel, jinn, Andrei Lossev, Mike Morris, multiverse, Igor Novikov, paradoxes, Roger Penrose, quantum mechanics, general relativity, special relativity, -- Carl Sagan, science fiction, spacecraft, stars, Sun, Kip Thorne, thought experiments, time, time travel, universe, Matt Visser, H.G. Wells, John Archibald Wheeler, wormholes, Ulve Yurtsever, etc.
The story of physicistsʼ quest to answer a mind-boggling question: How can we travel through time? Since H.G. Wellsʼs 1895 classic The Time Machine, readers of science fiction have puzzled over the paradoxes of time travel. But in the 1990s, a group of theoretical physicists at Caltech undertook a serious investigation of the possibility of pastward time travel and concluded that it might be possible, inspiring a serious and sustained study that engaged more than thirty physicists around the world. Many of the figures involved in these theories are familiar: Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Kip Thorne; others are names known mostly to physicists. These are the new time travelers, and this is the story of their work--a profoundly human endeavor marked by advances, retreats, and no small share of surprises.--From publisher description.