Encyclopedia of Time

Surveying the major facts, concepts, theories, and speculations that infuse our present comprehension of time, the "Encyclopedia of Time: Science, Philosophy, Theology, and Culture" explores the contributions of scientists, philosophers, theologians, and creative artists from ancient times to the present. By drawing together into one collection ideas from scholars around the globe and in a wide range of disciplines, this Encyclopedia will provide readers with a greater understanding of and appreciation for the elusive phenomenon experienced as time. It surveys historical thought about time, including those that emerged in ancient Greece, early Christianity, the Italian Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, and other periods. It covers the original and lasting insights of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin, physicist Albert Einstein, philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. It discusses the significance of time in the writings of Isaac Asimov, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Fyodor M. Dostoevsky, Francesco Petrarch, and numerous other authors. It includes the contributions of naturalists, philosophers, physicists, theologians, astronomers, anthropologists, geologists, paleontologists, and psychologists. It also includes artists' portrayals of the fluidity of time, including painter Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" and "The Discovery of America" by Christopher Columbus, and writers Gustave Flaubert's "The Temptation of Saint Anthony" and Henryk Sienkiewicz's "Quo Vadis". It provides a truly interdisciplinary approach, with discussions of Aztec, Buddhist, Christian, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Islamic, Hindu, Navajo, and many other cultures' conceptions of time.