
What Makes Time Special?
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $20.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Ray Greenley
-
By:
-
Craig Callender
About this listen
As we navigate through life we instinctively model time as having a flowing present that divides a fixed past from open future. This model develops in childhood and is deeply saturated within our language, thought, and behavior, affecting our conceptions of the universe, freedom, and the self. Yet as central as it is to our lives, physics seems to have no room for this flowing present. What Makes Time Special? demonstrates this claim in detail and then turns to two novel positive tasks. First, by looking at the world "sideways"—in the spatial directions—it shows that physics is not "spatializing time" as is commonly alleged. Even relativity theory makes significant distinctions between the spacelike and timelike directions, often with surprising consequences. Second, if the flowing present is an illusion, it is a deep one worthy of explanation. The author develops a picture whereby the temporal flow arises as an interaction effect between an observer and the physics of the world.
Using insights from philosophy, cognitive science, biology, psychology, and physics, the theory claims that the flowing present model of time is the natural reaction to the perceptual and evolutionary challenges thrown at us. Modeling time as flowing makes sense even if it misrepresents it.
©2017 Craig Callender (P)2023 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
Hyperspace
- A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension
- By: Michio Kaku
- Narrated by: Tim Lounibos
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Are there other dimensions beyond our own? Is time travel possible? Can we change the past? Are there gateways to parallel universes? All of us have pondered such questions, but there was a time when scientists dismissed these notions as outlandish speculations. Not any more. Today, they are the focus of the most intense scientific activity in recent memory. In Hyperspace, Michio Kaku offers the first book-length tour of the most exciting (and perhaps most bizarre) work in modern physics.
-
-
is there nothing really interesting to talk about in higher-dimensional physics?
- By Ari on 12-17-23
By: Michio Kaku
-
The Edge of Knowledge
- Unsolved Mysteries of the Cosmos
- By: Lawrence M. Krauss
- Narrated by: Lawrence M. Krauss
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three of the most important words in science are I don't know. Not knowing implies a universe of opportunities—the possibility of discovery and surprise. Our understanding of science has advanced immeasurably over the last 500 years, yet many fundamental mysteries of existence persist: How did our universe begin? How big is the universe? Is time travel possible? What’s at the center of a black hole? How did life on Earth arise? Are we alone? What is consciousness, and can we create it?
-
-
he lacks knowledge about his topics
- By Anonymous User on 05-28-23
-
Determined
- A Science of Life Without Free Will
- By: Robert M. Sapolsky
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Robert Sapolsky’s Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: We may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at the base of human behavior, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there is some separate self telling our biology what to do.
-
-
Abridged - no Appendix!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-02-23
-
White Holes
- By: Carlo Rovelli
- Narrated by: Harry Lloyd
- Length: 2 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Let us journey, with beloved physicist Carlo Rovelli, into the heart of a black hole. We slip beyond its horizon and tumble down this crack in the universe. As we plunge, we see geometry fold. Time and space pull and stretch. And finally, at the black hole’s core, space and time dissolve, and a white hole is born. Rovelli has dedicated his career to uniting the time-warping ideas of general relativity and the perplexing uncertainties of quantum mechanics. In White Holes, he reveals the mind of a scientist at work.
-
-
Absolutely Beyond Brilliant!
- By H. S. on 11-01-23
By: Carlo Rovelli
-
The Quantum Universe
- (And Why Anything That Can Happen, Does)
- By: Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw
- Narrated by: Samuel West
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Quantum Universe, Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw approach the world of quantum mechanics in the same way they did in Why Does E=mc2? and make fundamental scientific principles accessible - and fascinating - to everyone.The subatomic realm has a reputation for weirdness, spawning any number of profound misunderstandings, journeys into Eastern mysticism, and woolly pronouncements on the interconnectedness of all things. Cox and Forshaw's contention? There is no need for quantum mechanics to be viewed this way.
-
-
Not suitable as an audio book
- By SPN on 03-29-22
By: Brian Cox, and others
-
Black Holes
- The Key to Understanding the Universe
- By: Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw
- Narrated by: Jeff Forshaw
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the star physicist and author of multiple #1 Sunday Times bestsellers, a major and definitive narrative work on black holes and how they can help us understand the universe.
-
-
not really a good audio book for active listeners
- By D Co on 05-27-24
By: Brian Cox, and others
-
Hyperspace
- A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension
- By: Michio Kaku
- Narrated by: Tim Lounibos
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Are there other dimensions beyond our own? Is time travel possible? Can we change the past? Are there gateways to parallel universes? All of us have pondered such questions, but there was a time when scientists dismissed these notions as outlandish speculations. Not any more. Today, they are the focus of the most intense scientific activity in recent memory. In Hyperspace, Michio Kaku offers the first book-length tour of the most exciting (and perhaps most bizarre) work in modern physics.
-
-
is there nothing really interesting to talk about in higher-dimensional physics?
- By Ari on 12-17-23
By: Michio Kaku
-
The Edge of Knowledge
- Unsolved Mysteries of the Cosmos
- By: Lawrence M. Krauss
- Narrated by: Lawrence M. Krauss
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three of the most important words in science are I don't know. Not knowing implies a universe of opportunities—the possibility of discovery and surprise. Our understanding of science has advanced immeasurably over the last 500 years, yet many fundamental mysteries of existence persist: How did our universe begin? How big is the universe? Is time travel possible? What’s at the center of a black hole? How did life on Earth arise? Are we alone? What is consciousness, and can we create it?
-
-
he lacks knowledge about his topics
- By Anonymous User on 05-28-23
-
Determined
- A Science of Life Without Free Will
- By: Robert M. Sapolsky
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Robert Sapolsky’s Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: We may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at the base of human behavior, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there is some separate self telling our biology what to do.
-
-
Abridged - no Appendix!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-02-23
-
White Holes
- By: Carlo Rovelli
- Narrated by: Harry Lloyd
- Length: 2 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Let us journey, with beloved physicist Carlo Rovelli, into the heart of a black hole. We slip beyond its horizon and tumble down this crack in the universe. As we plunge, we see geometry fold. Time and space pull and stretch. And finally, at the black hole’s core, space and time dissolve, and a white hole is born. Rovelli has dedicated his career to uniting the time-warping ideas of general relativity and the perplexing uncertainties of quantum mechanics. In White Holes, he reveals the mind of a scientist at work.
-
-
Absolutely Beyond Brilliant!
- By H. S. on 11-01-23
By: Carlo Rovelli
-
The Quantum Universe
- (And Why Anything That Can Happen, Does)
- By: Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw
- Narrated by: Samuel West
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Quantum Universe, Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw approach the world of quantum mechanics in the same way they did in Why Does E=mc2? and make fundamental scientific principles accessible - and fascinating - to everyone.The subatomic realm has a reputation for weirdness, spawning any number of profound misunderstandings, journeys into Eastern mysticism, and woolly pronouncements on the interconnectedness of all things. Cox and Forshaw's contention? There is no need for quantum mechanics to be viewed this way.
-
-
Not suitable as an audio book
- By SPN on 03-29-22
By: Brian Cox, and others
-
Black Holes
- The Key to Understanding the Universe
- By: Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw
- Narrated by: Jeff Forshaw
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the star physicist and author of multiple #1 Sunday Times bestsellers, a major and definitive narrative work on black holes and how they can help us understand the universe.
-
-
not really a good audio book for active listeners
- By D Co on 05-27-24
By: Brian Cox, and others
-
On the Origin of Time
- Stephen Hawking's Final Theory
- By: Thomas Hertog
- Narrated by: Ethan Kelly
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Perhaps the biggest question Stephen Hawking tried to answer in his extraordinary life was how the universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life. In order to solve this mystery, Hawking studied the big bang origin of the universe, but his early work ran into a crisis when the math predicted many big bangs producing a multiverse—countless different universes, most of which would be far too bizarre to harbor life.
-
-
1960 ’s to 1980’s Re-Hash of History
- By Ron A. Parsons on 11-13-23
By: Thomas Hertog
-
Under Alien Skies
- A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe
- By: Phil Plait
- Narrated by: Phil Plait
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How would Saturn’s rings look from a spaceship sailing just above them? If you were falling into a black hole, what’s the last thing you’d see before your spaghettification? What would it be like to visit the faraway places we currently experience only through high-powered telescopes and robotic emissaries? Faster-than-light travel may never be invented, but we can still take the scenic route through the universe with renowned astronomer and science communicator Philip Plait.
-
-
great book, Candidly narrated
- By Alfred Maldonado on 09-03-23
By: Phil Plait
-
The Rigor of Angels
- Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality
- By: William Egginton
- Narrated by: David Glass
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges was madly in love when his life was shattered by painful heartbreak. But the breakdown that followed illuminated an incontrovertible truth—that love is necessarily imbued with loss, that the one doesn’t exist without the other. German physicist Werner Heisenberg was fighting with the scientific establishment on the meaning of the quantum realm’s absurdity when he had his own epiphany—that there is no such thing as a complete, perfect description of reality.
-
-
The most ridiculous narration
- By Anonymous User on 03-07-24
By: William Egginton
-
The Possibility of Life
- Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos
- By: Jaime Green
- Narrated by: Jaime Green
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most powerful questions humans ask about the cosmos is: Are we alone? While the science behind this inquiry is fascinating, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is a reflection of our values, our fears, and most importantly, our enduring sense of hope. In The Possibility of Life, acclaimed science journalist Jaime Green traces the history of our understanding, from the days of Galileo and Copernicus to our contemporary quest for exoplanets. Along the way, she interweaves insights from science fiction writers who construct worlds that in turn inspire scientists.
-
-
A dazzling journey into the vast depths of life’s meaning!
- By E. McDermott on 08-11-23
By: Jaime Green
-
Interstellar
- The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future in the Stars
- By: Avi Loeb
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the New York Times bestseller Extraterrestrial, Avi Loeb, the longest serving Chair of Harvard’s Astronomy Department, presented a theory that shook the scientific community: our solar system, Loeb claimed, had likely been visited by a piece of advanced alien technology from a distant star. This provocative and persuasive argument opened millions of minds internationally to the vast possibilities of our universe and the existence of intelligent life beyond Earth.
-
-
Postcolonial intersectional astrophysics
- By Amazon Customer on 09-02-23
By: Avi Loeb
-
Monsters
- A Fan's Dilemma
- By: Claire Dederer
- Narrated by: Claire Dederer
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.
-
-
Adresses my many questions
- By Syd Young on 11-01-23
By: Claire Dederer
-
Magisteria
- The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion
- By: Nicholas Spencer
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 16 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The true history of science and religion is a human one. It’s about the role of religion in inspiring, and strangling, science before the scientific revolution. It’s about the sincere but eccentric faith and the quiet, creeping doubts of the most brilliant scientists in history–Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein. Above all it’s about the question of what it means to be human and who gets to say–a question that is more urgent in the twenty-first century than ever before.
-
-
Excellent - much better than I expected
- By Dipam on 10-14-23
By: Nicholas Spencer
-
Existential Physics
- A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions
- By: Sabine Hossenfelder
- Narrated by: Gina Daniels
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Not only can we not currently explain the origin of the universe, it is questionable we will ever be able to explain it. The notion that there are universes within particles, or that particles are conscious, is ascientific, as is the hypothesis that our universe is a computer simulation. On the other hand, the idea that the universe itself is conscious is difficult to rule out entirely.
-
-
Unscientific and unengaging
- By Jase G on 03-29-23
-
Reality Is Not What It Seems
- The Journey to Quantum Gravity
- By: Carlo Rovelli, Simon Carnell - translator, Erica Segre - translator
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the New York Times best-selling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Order of Time, and Helgoland, a closer look at the mind-bending nature of the Universe. What are the elementary ingredients of the world? Do time and space exist? And what exactly is reality? Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli has spent his life exploring these questions. He tells us how our understanding of reality has changed over the centuries and how physicists think about the structure of the Universe today.
-
-
Most compelling physics book in at least 10 years!
- By Kyle on 02-03-17
By: Carlo Rovelli, and others
-
Something Deeply Hidden
- Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime
- By: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th-century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: Physics has been in crisis since 1927.
-
-
The Best Layperson Book on Quantum Physics
- By Conrad Barski on 09-11-19
By: Sean Carroll
-
Parfit
- A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality
- By: David Edmonds
- Narrated by: Zeb Soanes
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Derek Parfit (1942–2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affect us all: equality, altruism, what we owe to future generations, and even what it means to be a person. In Parfit, David Edmonds presents the first biography of an intriguing, obsessive, and eccentric genius.
-
-
Loved it
- By Anna Karenina on 07-05-23
By: David Edmonds
-
The Big Picture
- On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
- By: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on the Higgs boson and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions. Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void?
-
-
ABSOLUTE MUST READ!
- By serine on 05-12-16
By: Sean Carroll
What listeners say about What Makes Time Special?
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ben P.
- 11-09-23
Mind bending in the best way
Highly recommended. Some advanced mathematical and physical concepts require either a base level of knowledge or some ongoing research as you read. For me, a non-mathematically inclined philosophy guy, it was all I could do to wrap my head around it. Well worth the effort.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!