The Fantastically Marvellous Universe
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books & arts The fantastically marvellous universe Time in Powers After all, they grew up with Google Earth. timescales on which planets and galaxies of Ten: Natural A three-year-old can now use her fingers to would have long broken apart and faded Phenomena and zoom in and out on images of our Galaxy beyond the observable horizon and protons Their Timescales or cells with apps such as Cosmic Eye. would have decayed. The second part But I find Boeke’s black-and-white begins with the unimaginably short Planck illustrations rather charming (especially time (10−44 seconds) before making its way the first photograph of a girl with a cat, back to one second. Time in Powers of Ten proving that cats had taken over physics can then be read in any direction or well before invading the Internet) and one can randomly jump from chapter By Gerard ‘t Hooft and Stefan Vandoren; the explanations much more informative to chapter. translated by Saskia Eisberg-‘t Hooft and compelling than the brief notes The book is rich in examples from provided in the app. And the Powers of Ten nuclear and particle physics: half-lives of WORLD SCIENTIFIC: 2014. 232 PP. £16.00 short film is equally delightful with its different isotopes and subatomic particles. soundtrack reminding one of the original I would perhaps have liked more examples here is certainly no shortage of Star Trek series. from other areas, especially of ultrafast popular and scientific books Visualizing length scales is not that phenomena; but the authors promise a Ton time. It has always been an difficult — with a stretch of imagination, future fleshier version of the book, to endlessly fascinating topic for physicists one might even picture the vastness of which I will be looking forward to. And and philosophers alike: from Plato and galactic clusters, the smallness of an overall, the authors have compiled a Aristotle to St Augustine, Leibniz and atomic nucleus or the emptiness between refreshing mix of historical anecdotes Newton, Kant and Heidegger, Einstein and it and its electrons. But time is much more and examples from music to sport and Hawking. In the context of this history, difficult to grasp. ‘t Hooft and Vandoren biology to astronomy to lighten up the it would seem difficult to find a new not only take the challenge of writing heavier taste of particle physics and angle — and it does take a certain level about time, but also attempt to illustrate cosmology. I am quite sure that anyone, of self-confidence to write ‘yet another this elusive concept. Time in Powers of Ten physicist or layperson, could open the book about time’. But Gerard ‘t Hooft and is a bold enterprise — giving the reader book at a random page and find some Stefan Vandoren boldly took the challenge a feeling of the various timescales, interesting fact that he or she was not in their book Time in Powers of Ten, first quantified by the powers of ten, aware of. And I admit that after reading published in Dutch in 2011, but now through fascinating examples of natural the book, I felt quite tempted to think updated and translated into English by phenomena. The authors call it a coffee- about my life in powers of ten: my daily Saskia Eisberg-‘t Hooft. table book and the beautiful illustrations tube commute takes 2 × 103 ± ε seconds The book is a bit unusual. It is not certainly make it delightful to browse. (delays can be quite significant), my an essay and stays away from any Some parts are light and very accessible lunch break is 0.36 × 104 seconds, my son philosophical digressions about time. even to the general reader, while was born 7.8 × 106 seconds ago, and I Time in Powers of Ten is more of an others require scientific background have ~109 seconds until retirement. And illustrated encyclopaedia of timescales. and inclination to fully appreciate. I by the way, this book review was written The format is inspired, as the authors would hesitate to call it truly popular in ~2.1 × 104 seconds. acknowledge, by the 1957 book science, as the authors don’t shy away Time in Powers of Ten is both an Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps from writing down nuclear reactions or enjoyable read and very pleasant to by Kees Boeke (available at http://www. Feynman diagrams, and they invoke a browse at leisure. But does it manage to vendian.org/mncharity/cosmicview/). zoo of subatomic particles — enough to provide a visual image of timescales? To Boeke’s book is a selection of graphics intimidate even scientists. a certain extent it does, although ultrafast and explanations illustrating different The writing style is factual and a bit phenomena, such as meson decays, and length scales from the subatomic world dry, reminiscent of a traditional university ‘dark eternities’ much longer than the to the large astronomical structures lecture, but one can feel the authors’ current age of our Universe still remain in the Universe. It also inspired the touch in the selection of examples and in unfathomable. This is hardly surprising, 1977 short documentary Powers of Ten: the few humorous remarks that lighten as these phenomena are at the borders A Film Dealing with the Relative the text. The very format reminds one of of what physical theories can describe Size of Things in the Universe and a textbook — for instance, the colour- today. However, the authors’ aim is to the Effect of Adding Another Zero by coded examples of decay times of various show that “the variety of time is much Charles and Ray Eames (available at chemical elements and subatomic particles, richer than distance” and to provide a http://www.powersof10.com/film). orbital and rotational periods, times in glimpse of the fascinating diversity of our With today’s wealth of high-definition the history of the Universe, distances Universe. Indeed, Time in Powers of Ten images from astrophysics to biology and travelled by light, or periodical signals fully conveys the authors’ amazement material science, illustrating various length and vibrations. at — as Feynman put it — our fantastically scales is much easier than it was in the The first part of the book starts from marvellous universe. ❐ 50s or 70s. Nowadays, kids would look one second — a heartbeat — going to quizzically at Boeke’s simple illustrations. 1032 seconds and the unimaginably long REVIEWED BY IULIA GEORGESCU 544 NATURE PHYSICS | VOL 10 | AUGUST 2014 | www.nature.com/naturephysics © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.