Time's Pendulum: From Sundials to Atomic Clocks, the Fascinating History of Timekeeping and How Our Discoveries Changed the World [Paperback]

Jo Ellen Barnett (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0156006499 | ISBN-13: 978-0156006491 | Publication Date: March 25, 1999 | Edition: First Edition

A perfect balance of science, history, and sociology, Time's Pendulum traces the important developments in humankind's epic quest to measure the hours, days, and years with accuracy, and how our concept of time has changed with each new technological breakthrough. Written in an easy-to-follow chronological format and illustrated with entertaining anecdotes, author Jo Ellen Barnett's history of timekeeping covers everything from the earliest sundials and water clocks, to the pendulum and the more recent advances of battery-powered, quartz-regulated wrist watches and the powerful radioactive "clock," which loses only a few billionths of a second per day, making it nearly ten billion times more accurate than the pendulum clock. A tour of the discoveries and the inventors who endeavored to chart and understand time, Time's Pendulum also explains how each new advance gradually transformed our perception of the world.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Likely you've heard that the mechanical clock is one of humanity's most significant inventions, comparable to the printing press, or electricity, or the automobile. But first-time author Jo Ellen Barnett admits that most of us, if we're honest, don't quite see why. Our perception of time, and our artificial division of it into little, repeatable pieces, is so ingrained in us that we forget it's an invention.

Barnett, who admits to having been fascinated by time all her life, seems the perfect person to clear up this conceptual blind spot. Drawing from many disciplines, she's conducted a sweeping survey of our relationship with time, from our earliest attempts to measure and understand it to our more recent breakthroughs with carbon dating and atomic clocks. Time's Pendulum never skimps on the science, with its detailed explanations and unapologetic technical discussions. But what makes the book so very likable (and readable) is Barnett's passion for meditating on time's cultural and even spiritual mysteries. If you're already intrigued by time, Time's Pendulum makes for a satisfying, meaty read, rich in insights and historical anecdotes; if you aren't already intrigued, you will be. --Paul Hughes

Review

“With Time's Pendulum, Barnett has shown us that there is a mystery and a great story to be found in the very time that flows past us and which rules our lives. There is no need for wild speculation. Time's Pendulum is history. In both senses of an ambiguous phrase, it is the history of our time."-New Scientist
“The story of time and its machines is long, but indisputably interesting. [Barnett's book ]. . . is entertaining and worth a few hours' reading time."-The San Diego Union-Tribune

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Product Details

• Paperback: 334 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt Brace/Harvest Book; First Edition edition (March 25, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156006499
• ISBN-13: 978-0156006491
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #444,568 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #93 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Physics > Time

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A compelling introduction to the history of clockmaking, May 8, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time's Pendulum: From Sundials to Atomic Clocks, the Fascinating History of Timekeeping and How Our Discoveries Changed the World (Paperback)

This is really two books--the first is a chronological history of time measurement devices, and the second is a history of humankind's perception of the age of humanity, the earth, and the universe. The first book is fascinating and well written. Writing for a general readership, Barnett explores the development of clockmaking and how the existence of ever more accurate clocks has irrevocably changed everyday life for us all. Her detailed explanation of the verge-and-foliot escapement was especially fascinating, as was her discussion of "the equation of time" and how it gives rise to the Mean in Greenwich Mean Time. Overall, the first half of her book is a wonderful introduction to an underappreciated portion of humanity's history. The second half of Barnett's book, however, is a rehash of material that Isaac Asimov explored fully in his nonfiction writings in the 1960s and 1970s. It may hold the interest of readers unfamiliar with Asimov, but for me it was a real disappointment, especially after such a compelling introduction to the history of clocks and clockmaking.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two books in one, both interesting!, March 10, 2004

By 

Bruce R. Gilson (Wheaton, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Time's Pendulum: From Sundials to Atomic Clocks, the Fascinating History of Timekeeping and How Our Discoveries Changed the World (Paperback)

Jo Ellen Barnett has written two books here, hidden between one set of covers. The first part goes over the history of how we have measured (and, truly, how we have defined) the time of day, starting with the "temporary hours" of a sundial (longer in summer, shorter in winter, and not even counted during the night), and transitioning to equal (but still based on the sun) hours (local apparent time), then to local mean time, to standard (time-zone) time, and ending up with the current Coordinated Universal Time, based on atomic phenomena. The story is absorbing and well written, and would be an enjoyable book all by itself.

Then she has a second part, concerned with the way we have determined the age of the earth. This could be said to start with the speculations of the Babylonians and Greeks, but really took off in earnest with medievals' attempts to build everything on a Biblical basis, reading into the Biblical account whatever they needed to build their chronology. When the geologists tried to account for their own observations, however, it was clear that the few thousand years the Bible literalists derived for the age of the earth was far too small, but physicists like Lord Kelvin (while arriving at a longer time than the Bible provided) still reached an age of the earth too brief to mesh with the geological evidence. Only with the discovery of radioasctivity and the refinement of the techniques of deriving chronological data from radioactivity measurements could the physicists and geologists be reconciled.

Both parts make it clear that ultimately time has become defined in terms of atomic phenomena (though different parts of the atom) and only through our measurement of these can accuracy be attained (whether in the case of the time of day or the time the earth has taken to evolve since its origin).

Unlike some other two-part books I have reviewed, this one puts them both together successfully. It is a very interesting book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An interesting book, June 14, 2001

By 

Daniel Graf "Daniel Graf" (Tuscaloosa, Alabama) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Time's Pendulum: From Sundials to Atomic Clocks, the Fascinating History of Timekeeping and How Our Discoveries Changed the World (Paperback)

Time's Pendulum is a book not only about time and how time is measured, but also about our perception of time -- from the moment we as a species started worrying about it right up to today. Barnett does not only discuss clocks and how clocks work but the importance of time in daily life. Also excellent is her discussion of 'deep time' -- thinking about time on astronomical scales. I was also pleased by the more subtle connections. For example, the influence of the railroads on not only synchronizing watches over extending longitutes (i.e., time zones), but also their contribution to geologic time through uncovering the fossiliferous rocks during their construction.