The Clock Mirage, Joseph Mazur
The Clock Mirage, Joseph Mazur
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The Clock Mirage
Our Myth of Measured Time

Author: Joseph Mazur

Narrator: Keith Sellon-Wright

Unabridged: 8 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/19/2020


Synopsis

What is time? This question has fascinated philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists for thousands of years.

Award-winning author and mathematician Joseph Mazur provides an engaging exploration of how the understanding of time has evolved throughout human history and offers a compelling new vision, submitting that time lives within us. Our cells, he notes, have a temporal awareness, guided by environmental cues in sync with patterns of social interaction. Readers learn that, as a consequence of time's personal nature, a forty-eight-hour journey on the Space Shuttle can feel shorter than a six-hour trip on the Soyuz capsule, that the Amondawa of the Amazon do not have ages, and that time speeds up with fever and slows down when we feel in danger.

With a narrative punctuated by personal stories of time's effects on truck drivers, Olympic racers, prisoners, and clockmakers, Mazur's journey is filled with fascinating insights into how our technologies, our bodies, and our attitudes can change our perceptions. Ultimately, time reveals itself as something that rides on the rhythms of our minds. The Clock Mirage presents an innovative perspective that will force us to rethink our relationship with time, and how best to use it.

About Joseph Mazur

Joseph Mazur is professor emeritus of mathematics at Marlboro College. His previous books include Euclid in the Rainforest: Discovering Universal Truth in Logic and Math and Fluke: The Math and Myth of Coincidence. He lives with his wife Jennifer in Vermont.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Tatiana on July 17, 2020

a little too abrupt......more

Goodreads review by Han on January 24, 2021

Interesting, basically a very eloquent beating around the bush in 19 chapters. Time has some deeply mysterious aspects. The chapter about the biological mechanisms which define our circadian clock inside is very good. 3.5 stars......more

Goodreads review by Justus on March 05, 2022

I do plan on rereading this book again (there's brief mention of physics concepts and I'd like to refamiliarize myself), and my rating may change; however, I think 3 stars is a good rating. I do like the detail he gave about clocks and when humans started measuring time. He explains everything well......more

Goodreads review by Robert on June 07, 2021

I really enjoyed reading The Clock Mirage by Joseph Mazur. As someone who's first subject isn't math I found it very easy to read and understand. I highly enjoyed the human elements added to the book. I think it was important that he talked about social issues like how time effects prisoners. That g......more

Goodreads review by Mich on November 14, 2020

I really wanted to delve in this book but it just didn’t get me with all the stuff on clocks in the opening chapters, the way the world divided time into weeks, months, minutes, and then philosophy. Ended up speed reading and didn’t do it justice.......more