Time

Introduction

Part 1: The fascination of spinning tops

1. The desire to master time
When the spell is broken
Life's time
Urns and sepulchres: the birth of past, present and future

2. Our time
The sense of time
When Chronos ran wild and free
Caging time
The Triumph of Chronos

Part 2: Where time stops

1. The odd couple
Time which melts and shatters: Soft clocks: Fantastic accuracy: making money from relativity: Great philosophers and Little Red Riding-Hood

2. The long history of time
The beginning of time
The end of time
Time in the world of great cosmic distances
Magnificent illusions and fantastic chimeras
When the energy of three suns travels lightly over the waves of Space-time

3. When time stops
The clocks of the Paris Commune
The Hellish places where time vanishes
The spectacular end of Betelgeuse
The terror champions
Physics at the points of empty time

Part 3: Between ephemeral existence and eternal life

1. The life of particles
A world full of weirdness
Masses which explode and times which dilate disproportionately
Cosmic super-accelerators
The little red and white brick house

2. The time of the infinitely small
A handful of chosen ones
In the ivanescent realm of the ephemeral
The reckless life of muons
Beauty, charm and the timidity of quarks

3. A very special relationship
A Castor and Pollux like-existence
Grabbing Kairos by the hair
Measuring time with energy
The raids of the messengers, Hermes' proteges
The perfect couple

4. Can time's arrow be reversed?
An equation reveals a world whose existence nobody had suspected
The Holy Grail of symmetry
The secret of a poem, or a fine wine
Entropy and the irreversibility of time

5. The dream of killing Chronos
The ancient poetry of the idea of stopping time
Time's assassins
Nosferatu

Epilogue: The brief time

Acknowledgements
Index