From reviews of the first edition: "Here's a gem of a book...all peppered with delightful notes from science fiction films, novels, and comics. I can't turn a page without finding a jewel." Clifford Stoll, University of California, Berkeley (author of "The Cuckoo's Egg")From the Foreword by Kip Thorne (author of "Black Holes and Time Warps"):"In browsing this revised edition, I have been struck by the richness and complexity of the tapestry of ideas that Nahin presents. His interweaving of physics and fiction is done adeptly and keeps the book flowing...Like a good journalist, Nahin simply reports what he sees in the physics and science fiction literature, commenting lucidly and often pointedly on the interconnections, contradictions, and controversies, but leaving it to his readers to form their own final judgments...Nahin's book, with its complex tapestry of ideas and possibilities, may well remain the most readable and complete treatise on time travel in science and science fiction." Time Machines explores the idea of time travel from the first account in English literature to the latest theories of physicists such as Kip Thorne and Igor Novikov.
This fascinating and very accessible book covers a variety of topics including the history of time travel in fiction; the fundamental scientific concepts of time, space-time, and the fourth dimension; the speculations of Einstein, Richard Feynman, Kurt Goedel, and others; time travel paradoxes, and much more. The new edition is substantially enlarged and updated throughout.