Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-299) and index(es).

1 Introduction : Plan of this book -- What is time? -- Paradigms -- Events in time -- Temporal ordering and time labels -- The contextuality of temporal ordering -- Arrows of time -- Arrows versus cycles. 2 Observers and time : Introduction -- metaphysics, physics, and validation -- Observers and the physical universe -- The contextuality of scientific truth -- Contextual completeness -- Time and contextuality -- The contextuality of the existential quantifier -- Primary observers -- experiments -- Heisenberg cuts -- Generalize propositions. 3 Subjective images of time : The Greeks -- The dogmatists -- The sceptics -- The Age of Reason -- The classical mechanists -- The metaphysicists -- The mathematical physicists. 4 Cultural images of time : Cosmogony and theogony -- Stone Age calendars -- The Mesopotamians -- The Middle east -- The Europeans -- Eastern philosophies -- Australian Aboriginal concepts of time -- The Central Americans -- The Far East. 5 Literary images of time : Introduction -- Literary varieties. 6 Objective images of time : Introduction -- Optics -- Other factors -- Time in the laboratory -- Laboratory frames and observer choruses -- Chorus protocol -- Superobservers. 7 Mathematical images of time : Introduction -- Some reasonable requirements -- Sets -- Temporal ordering and ordered sets -- Functions and the mathematical arrow of time -- Cardinality -- The natural numbers -- Linear continua -- Further concepts. 8 Illusionary images of time : The Block Universe -- Persistence and transtemporal identity -- The problem of time in cosmology. 9 Causal images of time : Introduction -- Causality -- Blame and responsibility -- Determinism and known unknowns -- Teleology -- Chaos. 10 Physics and time : Physics and persistence -- Scales of time. 11 Biological time : Introduction -- The solar model -- Lifetimes of organisms -- Chronobiology -- Biological time travel. 12 The dimensions of time : Introduction -- Partial differential equations and the flow of information -- The signature of spacetime -- Empirical studies. 13 The architecture of time : What is temporal architecture? -- Examples of temporal architectures -- Architectural levels of observation. 14 Absolute time : Introduction -- Clocks -- The reparameterization of time -- Absolute space -- Aristotelian space-time versus Galilean-Newtonian space-time -- Particle worldlines -- The Newtonian mechanical paradigm -- The Euler-Lagrange mechanical paradigm -- Phase space -- Canonical transformation theory -- Infinitesimal transformations. 15 The reparametrization of time : Introduction -- Temporal parametrization -- Temporal reparametrization -- Action integrals -- Temporal reparametrization in detail -- Reparametrization form invariance -- The extended equations of motion -- Transformation to phase space -- Reparametrized primary identity. 16 Origins of relativity : Inertial frames -- The speed of light and Galilean transformations -- The Michelson-=Morley experiment -- FitzGerald length contraction -- Derivation of FitzGerald length contraction -- FitzGerald time dilation -- Lorentz transformations. 17 Special relativity : Lorentz transformations -- Simultaneity in special relativity -- Time dilation -- The clock hypothesis -- The Twin Paradox -- Lightcones -- The Klein-Gordon equation -- The causal propgation of special relativistic fields -- Fock-Kemmer front velocity and the memory field. 18 Generalized transformations : Introduction -- Constraints -- The Michelson-Morley constraint -- Some standard transformations -- The splitting of causality -- Empirical evidence for a preferred frame. 19 General relativistic time : Space-time versus spacetime -- Lorentzian signature metrics -- Pseudo-Riemannian manifolds -- The Schwarzschild metric -- Gravitational time dilation -- Black hole geometry -- The spinning disc. 20 Time travel : Introduction -- Information flow -- Tachyons -- Spreadsheet time travel -- The Góodel metric -- Timelike geodesics. 21 Imaginary time : Introduction -- Minkowski's imaginary time -- Application to wave mechanics -- Propagators and Green's functions -- Path integrals -- Quantum gravity -- Quantum thermodynamics -- Black home thermodynamics -- Quantum cosmology -- Conclusions. 22 Irreversible time : Introduction -- Glauber's correlations -- Probability -- The expansion of the universe -- Poincaré recurrence. 23 Discrete time : Introduction -- Difference equations -- The action sum -- Caldirola's proper time chronon -- Caldirola's microverse model -- Discrete-time classical electrodynamics. 24 Time and quanta : Introduction -- Schréodinger versus Heisenberg -- de Broglie waves -- The time-energy uncertainty relation -- The relativistic propagator. 25 temporal correlations : Introduction -- Classical bit temporal correlations -- Quantum bit temporal correlation -- Understanding the Leggett-Garg prediction. 26 Time reversal : Introduction -- classical active time reversal -- Schrodinger wave mechanics -- THe time-reversal operator -- The Pauli equation -- The Dirac wave equation -- TCP theorem -- Kaons. 27 Quantized spacetime : Introduction -- Mach's relationalism -- Einstein's relationalism -- Planck, quanta, photons, and existence -- Snyder's quantized spacetime. 28 Epilogue. Appendix : Sets -- Groups -- Metric spaces -- RIngs and fields -- Vector spaces -- Hilbert space -- Observables -- Antilinear and antiunitary operators -- Affine spaces -- Manifolds -- Signature -- Variational derivation of Einstein's field equations from the Hilbert action -- Doppler shifts. Bibliography -- Index.

This book shows how to classify any Image of Time in terms of its contextual completeness, a way of differentiating between metaphysical images and those that could in principle be put to empirical test.