Timescale

This book contains timetables which purport to show the development of physical, biological historical processes. It contains explanations of the processes, maps and charts. It is filled with information and contains a glossary at the end which provides useful definitions of various terms. An excellent tool. But the book made me feel uneasy in one way. How does one measure within oneself the meaning of these various times and timescales? What do the numbers say to us? Are they simply meaningless ciphers, figures we learn? In other words there is some disassociation felt on my part here between the ' scientific information' presented and the human meaning it can be given. Perhaps that is not really relevant to what the book was meant to be. But this is one of the reasons I had that Whitman like feeling given in the poem " When I heard the learned Astronomer" the famous ' turned in silence and looked at the stars'.

copyright 1984This book has three parts. The first part explains how scientists measure the ages of ancient objects that they observe, and how they correllate these measurements. The second part describes the big bang, using a time scale that increases exponentially. The third part, which is the bulk of the book, summarizes the events of all time, from the big bang up to 1980.Despite its age, the book is remarkable up-to-date, and a real pleasure to read. This book I keep to both read for pleasure and refer to.