The theoretical physicist Lee Smolin has written 4 books. I’ve read 3 1/2 of them.

His first book, The Life of the Cosmos, applied the theory of evolution to cosmology. Smolin suggested that our universe might be a good home for life because universes breed new universes, which differ somewhat from their parents. Over time, a universe with lots of black holes will generate a number of new universes with lots of black holes, and universes with lots of black holes tend to be hospitable for life, since their fundamental constants (like the strength of their subatomic forces) have values that permit life to evolve.

His next book, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, was too technical for me, but I did finish his 3rd book, The Trouble With Physics. In that one, he argued that string theory is much too popular among physicists, since it isn’t a proper scientific theory. It’s too speculative and might never generate testable predictions.

Now there is Time Reborn. This is a kind of sequel to Smolin’s earlier books. He still subscribes to the evolutionary views presented in The Life of the Cosmos, but his principal thesis now is that time is real. In fact, time is more real than space. This contradicts the common view among physicists and philosophers that space and time are the four dimensions that make up “spacetime”. The standard view among physicists is that all events, whether past, present or future, are equally real. There is nothing special about the present moment. In fact, our perception that time passes is an illusion.

Smolin argues that this consensus view of the universe as a “block universe”, in which all moments are the same, is a mistake. He agrees that the laws of physics and the equations that express them can run forwards or backwards, but only on scales smaller than the universe as a whole. The planets could revolve the other way around the sun, just like clocks can run in reverse. But the universe as a whole has a history that is real and a future that isn’t determined. Smolin thinks that treating time as real might help resolve certain issues in physics, such as the “arrow of time”, i.e., the fact that certain processes always go in one direction (entropy tends to increase in isolated systems).

Professor Smolin tries to explain how his view of time fits with Einstein’s special theory of relativity (in which temporal properties are relative to an observer) and how something can act like a particle and a wave at the same time (as shown by the famous “double-slit” experiment). I don’t know if those explanations or some of his other technical explanations make sense. But it was reassuring to read a book by a reputable physicist who believes that time is real, physicists have overemphasized the importance of mathematics in understanding the universe, and there is a reality beyond what we can observe. Smolin also believes that there are probably more fundamental, deterministic laws that underlie quantum mechanics. I believe that’s what Einstein thought too.

Time Reborn veers into philosophy at times. There is much discussion of the Principles of Sufficient Reason and the Identity of Indiscernibles. The book concludes with some comments on subjects that aren’t physics, like the nature of consciousness. Smolin’s philosophical remarks are relatively unsophisticated. I assume his physics is better.

Even if he’s wrong about the reality of time, however, I enjoyed the book. For one thing, I can now see how two particles at opposite ends of the universe could be “entangled”, such that a change to one would automatically result in an immediate change to the other. Space might have more dimensions than we recognize. In another spatial dimension, the two entangled particles might be very close neighbors, making what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” (“spukhafte Fernwirkung“) less mysterious. That makes me feel a lot better.