Time One

Discover How the Universe Began

By: Colin Gillespie

Narrated by: Derek Perkins

Length: 23 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's Summary

Time One tackles mankind's most baffling question: How did the world begin? After challenging old thinking about forty-seven crucial scientific problems, Time One author Colin Gillespie solves forty-five of them and comes up with a strikingly simple answer to the most perplexing question of them all: How did the world begin?

Time One takes an iconoclastic look at contemporary physics, notably relativity, quantum mechanics and string theory. It connects the dots across centuries of philosophy, literature and religion. Yet despite its formidable scope and breadth, it remains accessible and even lighthearted. It's the ultimate mystery, and it takes a fictional detective to solve it. The protagonist--a beach bum--takes his cues not only from the likes of Aristotle, Newton and Einstein but also from Lewis Carroll, Raymond Chandler, Frank Herbert--and even Mariah Carey--among many others. And the most helpful if least likely source is the imaginary detective who becomes his sidekick. One of the book's central (and most entertaining) premises is the detective's use of science's great stumbling blocks as clues to what happened before the Big Bang.

©2013 Colin Gillespie (P)2013 Audible Inc.

Unexpectedly and pleasantly surprised

I have read a number of books on a wide range of sciences, and listened to even more. When I was browsing for the next book to listen to, this one caught my attention by how long it is. Then when I started listening, for the first half hour I was interested in the book since it was written in a sort of fiction framework; and I much prefer factual books over fiction (hence my preference for science-based books). And the ultra elementary start to the author's explanation of open question in physics didn't help. But I kept listening hoping the 24 hours of audiobook narration would actually lead to something. And it absolutely did!
It took about 90 chapters to finally build up to some new ideas I've never heard or read before, and it was well worth the time. Also, the narrator did an excellent job reading the story, in every way possible. In retrospect, it makes sense that the author started so elementary to build up a thought experiment in a direction I haven't seen before. This book is definitely worth the time to listen to

AMAZING

This book is informative and philosophical and absolutely hilariously tolls by the writer and has the PERFECT NARRATOR.
LOVELOVELOVE.

Stopped after several long hours

I found the premise and presentation annoying and very difficult to listen to. If you are looking for insight, you've come to the wrong place.

review

Great book. usually I don't like the book with too many side stories. but he did it well and kept it interesting. a great review for non physist.

inane rambling

Tried very hard to like this. Very little information, presented in a not very interesting manner-not imaginative, just inane.,

It takes some effort but it is brilliant

This is maybe not an 'effortless/mindless listen' - if you fall behind the author you need to stop and go back, and you may have to stop in order to process some things. If you are more interested in finishing the book so that you can have an opinion, than you are in partaking in the journey to gain insights into time and the universe, then I think it will be frustrating. I recommend saving it for when you have time to focus on the narration and reflect.

Death by a thousand quotes

I can't even get into it. every chapter starts off with about five minutes of random quotes. once you tune this out for a few minutes you realize the chapter has begun. you try to rewind to find the beginning, then you realize you don't care and you select another book.

Huh?

What the hell is this? No way am I listening to 22 hours of this.

Annoying

Listened to first few chapters, skipped through next ten, but it never achieves take off. Maybe there's a good book about a third of the length in there.

too long

Too long. The author was searching for a way forward. Not believing the floored logic

Deep and meaningful

I have been listening to various scientific and philosophical books recently. And also the occasional classic novel. This combines all three in an unique way that is both informative and entertaining. One of the best audio plus catalogue offers yet. Thanks

Excellent book

Bit put off at the beginning because of how different it is to other books on the topic. In the end I couldn't stop listening. Great book and well worth a read!

Too many qotes

interesting ideas. The huge amounts of quotes at the start of each chapter put me off so I did not complete the book. Shame.

I love detective fiction, but the pace kills it

The idea of making the development of non-classical physics a detective story has merit, but good detective fiction has pace, whith this doesn't. Chopped into 130 chapters (plus title, preface, introduction, cynasure(sp??), epilogue, post-partum), each with around a minute of quotes from other people, (most of which seem to have no relivence to the work) kills it for me. The narrator gives his best shot, and would be OK reading a Raymond Chandler, so I've given the performance a good mark, but I can't take the breaking up of the book into tiny parts. My player can be told to skip certain sections so I've gone through all 130+ sections and set it to skip over all the pointless stuff. That has taken out around 2 hours, and so, in total, about 10% of the book is other people's words. Perhaps the author has misunderstood the conventions of referencing others in a scientific work, perhaps he has no confidence in his own words, and so has used lots of other people's words. Its a shame, the idea is sound, just very badly implemented. It was included free in my membership, and I suppose you get what you pay for!