Martin Gorst, Measuring Eternity: The Search For the Beginning of Time. Broadway Books-Random House, Inc. 2001. 338 pp. table of contents, bibliography, notes and sources, index, photos, illustrations, charts, black, cover- brown and gold with pictures of prominent scientist.
As the author of two comprehensive studies on the philosophers, clergymen and scientist racing to determine the size and age of the universe, Martin Gorst is also known for his work with Britain's Channel 4 and the Discovery Channel. Among his accomplishments as a director of documentary films, Gorsts Birds of Prey can be seen on the Discovery Channel. Known as a science writer with a talent for explaining complex scientific concepts in a clear and entertaining manner, Gorst is not a scientist himself. Rather, his sincere passion for the sciences as well as his application and study of journalism and film production, have combined to deliver compelling and informative treatments on topics that might otherwise appear abstruse. Therefore, as the author of Aeons and Measuring Eternity, Gorst is best known by scientists and lay-people alike as an excellent science writer.
A convincing example of Gorsts talents as a science writer, Measuring Eternity illustrates the personalities and process behind the varied attempts to answer the question: when did time begin? Covering five centuries of determined exploration by prominent religious and scientific thinkers, Gorst captures the tension between the disciplines as clergymen confront natural scientists in a world increasingly founded upon physical evidence. Equally contentious are the scientists toward one another, as new theories and procedures in geology and physics compete to uncover the age of the earth. With the ongoing clash of conventional beliefs with innovations in scientific measurement, Measuring Eternity examines the passionate quest for the answer to one of the most fundamental questions of existence.
One man who proposed to answer the question for all posterity was the inexhaustible James Ussher, whose Latin manuscript of 2000 pages proclaimed the beginning of time as Saturday, October 22, 4004 BC at 6 o'clock in the afternoon. The author's extensive review of Ussher's ambitious search for corroborating documents and scripture demonstrates how fervently the 17th century priest carried out his task. This was the age of recusant fines where a member or Ussher's parish might be charged one shilling for having missed the Sunday service. Just as his parishioners were held to a strict schedule, Usherr's own expectations of his position were strictly abided by. With his colleague Thomas Davies he perused various biblical and scholarly texts from the Samaritan and Chaldean versions Old Testament, to Keplers calculations and Josephus record of eclipses. While the voracity of Usherr's date (when the divine hand first wound the cosmic clock) is certainly reserved for those most quixotically attached to their King James, Gorst manages to leave the reader with an appreciation for the Archbishop's extensive hermeneutical process.
Despite the interlocking text Usherr was able to amass in verifying his chronology, a new inquisitiveness, which departed from the mysteries of scripture, soon gave birth to the foundation of the natural sciences. As René Descarte's silenced his own theories in light of the executions of men such as Giordano Bruno and Giulio Vanini who had dared to argue that the universe was infinite or that a natural explanations could be discerned for various miracles, he nevertheless continued to develop his controversial ideas. Knowing that Vanini had his tongue cut out, was strangled and, finally, burned to death for expressing his theories, and that Galileo Galilei had been arrested in Rome for asserting that the Earth traveled around the sun, Descarte's reservations were certainly warranted. Eventually, however, as Gorst explains, Descartes Earth, which evolved from the friction and break down of primordial matter, would entirely step away from the gospel of Genesis. Although many argued against the validity of the natural forces illustrated in Descartes Principles of Philosophy, the catalyst for a new age of thinking had left its mark.
Eventually the great debates centered on differences emerging within the sciences. With one foot firmly planted on the Christian understanding that God made man and the other standing proudly on his accomplishments and knowledge as a physicist, Lord Kelvin found Charles Darwin's notion of evolution faulty from the start. Thus the rivalry between physicist and uniformitarian geologist began. Kelvin's popularity after the successful transatlantic communications line and the notoriety of Darwin's Origin of Species elevated the importance of their debates and brought science into the public eye. The fascinating web of discoveries, as physicists delved into the atomic age and geologist merged the knowledge radioactivity with Charles Lyell and James Huttons elucidating observations, would continue. The post World War II acceleration of discovery brought on by the huge telescopes of Pasadena and Palomar Mountain lead to a new frenzy of spirited competition. From George Gamow to Clair Patterson the Earth and universe were soon to have relatively finite timelines.
It is certain as one reads Measuring Eternity that the converging religious and scientific theories and the range of personalities behind them enthrall Martin Gorst. The rich and well-documented account of the search for the beginning of time captures ones interest through its easily understood prose, often vividly eccentric characters, and solid scientific explanation. While the text is highly instructive and rife with complexity, Gorsts eternity goes by in a flash on account of his obvious appreciation for his field of study and the simultaneously challenging, yet clear presentation of the scientific concepts.
David L. Goyette
Physical Geography
Dr. Schilz
