Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time

Time rules our lives, woven into the very fabric of the universe – from the rising and setting of the sun to the cycles of nature, the thought processes in our brains, and the biorhythms in our day. Nothing so pervades our existence and yet is so difficult to explain.

But now, in a series of 24 riveting lectures, you can grasp exactly why – as you take a mind-expanding journey through the past, present, and future, guided by a noted author and scientist. Designed for nonscientists as well as those with a background in physics, the lectures show how a feature of the world that we all experience – a process known as entropy – connects us to the instant of the formation of the universe, and possibly to a multiverse that is unimaginably larger and more varied than the known cosmos.

Drawing on such exciting ideas as black holes, cosmic inflation, and dark energy, the lectures also address a momentous question that until recently was considered unanswerable: What happened before the big bang? And while the focus is on physics, Professor Carroll also examines philosophical views on time, how we perceive and misperceive time, the workings of memory, and serious proposals for time travel, as well as imaginative ways that time has been disrupted in fiction.

“What is time?” asked Saint Augustine 1,600 years ago. “If no one asks me, I know. But if I wish to explain it to someone who asks, I know not.” These lectures will move you much closer to an answer.

Table of Contents

Lecture 1: Why Time Is a Mystery

Lecture 2: What Is Time?

Lecture 3: Keeping Time

Lecture 4: Time’s Arrow

Lecture 5: The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Lecture 6: Reversibility and the Laws of Physics

Lecture 7: Time Reversal in Particle Physics

Lecture 8: Time in Quantum Mechanics

Lecture 9: Entropy and Counting

Lecture 10: Playing with Entropy

Lecture 11: The Past Hypothesis

Lecture 12: Memory, Causality, and Action

Lecture 13: Boltzmann Brains

Lecture 14: Complexity and Life

Lecture 15: The Perception of Time

Lecture 16: Memory and Consciousness

Lecture 17: Time and Relativity

Lecture 18: Curved Spacetime and Black Holes

Lecture 19: Time Travel

Lecture 20: Black Hole Entropy

Lecture 21: Evolution of the Universe

Lecture 22: The Big Bang

Lecture 23: The Multiverse

Lecture 24: Approaches to the Arrow of Time