Of Clocks and Time takes readers on a five-stop journey through the physics and technology (and occasional bits of applications and history) of timekeeping. On the way, conceptual vistas and qualitative images abound, but since mathematics is spoken everywhere the book visits equations, quantitative relations, and rigorous definitions are offered as well. The expedition begins with a discussion of the rhythms produced by the daily and annual motion of sun, moon, planets, and stars. Centuries worth of observation and thinking culminate in Newton's penetrating theoretical insights since his notion of space and time are still influential today. During the following two legs of the trip, tools are being examined that allow us to measure hours and minutes and then, with ever growing precision, the tiniest fractions of a second. When the pace of travel approaches the ultimate speed limit, the speed of light, time and space exhibit strange and counter-intuitive traits. On this fourth stage of the journey, Einstein is the local tour guide whose special and general theories of relativity explain the behavior of clocks under these circumstances. Finally, the last part of the voyage reverses direction, moving ever deeper into the past to explore how we can tell the age of "things" - including that of the universe itself.

The ancient Romans changed more than the map of the world when they conquered so much of it; they altered the way historical time itself is marked and understood. In this brilliant, erudite, and exhilarating book Denis Feeney investigates time and its contours as described by the ancient Romans, first as Rome positioned itself in relation to Greece and then as it exerted its influence as a major world power. Feeney welcomes the reader into a world where time was movable and changeable and where simply ascertaining a date required a complex and often contentious cultural narrative. In a style that is lucid, fluent, and graceful, he investigates the pertinent systems, including the Roman calendar (which is still our calendar) and its near perfect method of capturing the progress of natural time; the annual rhythm of consular government; the plotting of sacred time onto sacred space; the forging of chronological links to the past; and, above all, the experience of empire, by which the Romans meshed the city state's concept of time with those of the foreigners they encountered to establish a new worldwide web of time. Because this web of time was Greek before the Romans transformed it, the book is also a remarkable study in the cross-cultural interaction between the Greek and Roman worlds.
Feeney's skillful deployment of specialist material is engaging and accessible and ranges from details of the time schemes used by Greeks and Romans to accommodate the Romans' unprecedented rise to world dominance to an edifying discussion of the fixed axis of B.C./A.D., or B.C.E./C.E., and the supposedly objective "dates" implied. He closely examines the most important of the ancient world's time divisions, that between myth and history, and concludes by demonstrating the impact of the reformed calendar on the way the Romans conceived of time's recurrence. Feeney's achievement is nothing less than the reconstruction of the Roman conception of time, which has the additional effect of transforming the way the way the reader inhabits and experiences time.

The purpose of this book is to examine the possibility of traversing the future from the past as a means to advance humanity, civilization and the natural world, we shepherd for the cosmic consciousness. It presents images of paintings from Renaissance artists who envisioned spacetime, Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and Extraterrestrials in their masterpieces. Some paintings, particularly from Leonardo de Vinci and other masters depicted the technology that is evident today and more than 500 years from their lives. Either they were transported to the future by UFOs in their paintings or envisioned the future through out-of-body experiences, like dreams, through the hyperspace of the 5th dimension. What is once perceived as imaginary if accurate may be an empirically difficult to confirm our three-dimensional reality? The argument presented by Goldberg (1998) is presented that "all humans are time travelers through past, present and future lives." The supposition that supercivilizations of the ancient world, like Mu and Atlantis, and those of a millennium or more in the future have readily traversed spacetime and altered the past, present and future of mankind and the planet is presented. Regression hypnosis of tens of thousands of patients by Dr. Goldberg (1998) serves as a portal into this intervention and its effects on civilization, technological and spiritual advancement. Prophecies of great seers, like Michel de Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce are examined as evidence that they envisioned access to the future from the past through the 5th dimension. The extraterrestrial through the ages is revealed from its earthly origin in Mu, Egypt and the political gridlock evident in the U. S. today. Two distinct pathways are acknowledged that affect every civilization. The path of ascension in abundance leads to civilization rising. Descension of these civilizations occurs when spiritual growth and enlightenment directly between the cosmic consciousness, and us is deferred by the pursuit of secular obsessions, greed, envy and vanity. At any given time in space, both paths (Yen and Yang) are present and stimulate the development of the other. The planet and all living things are endangered when the scale is weighed down with themes congruent to descension. This pathway leads to nature's cataclysm as a means to break hegemony over God's creations and restore balance. The rise and fall of great civilizations throughout the ages are wedded to this cyclical-linear model of birth, death and rebirth. Each of the preceding civilizations, in turn, eventually spawn more advanced civilizations. Like the numerical time of day when it reaches its highest number on a watch or clock, supercivilization descends into ancient predecessors of modern civilizations.