Rating: 
Summary: Those Who Can't Remember The Future Must Live It
Review: ...Time to cut to the chase ['cause life is short]: I really loved Richard Gott's Time Travel In Einstein's Universe! Let's get a few things straight: this isn't New Age sewage, this isn't a book about quantum mechanics [obviously it comes up, but general and special relativity are the backstory for this volume], this is a book that will be understood by folks who like diagrams [there are plenty] AND folks who like verbal descriptions [lots of those, too], this is Richard Gott's book and he does focus on HIS ideas about time travel and other things, the author does use examples from popular culture [mainly, in the first chapter] and always to good purpose. Gott outlines ways that time travel is and might be possible. He even shows how the origin of our universe might depend on time travel. He ends the book with an exposition on his thinking on the Copernican principle [it fits - read the book and see why]. I don't want to blow the ending, but I will tell you that it has a bit of a suprise. I don't think it should come down to a choice between this book or Clifford Pickover's excellent book on time travel because both books take a different tack and both books will expand your brainpan. In my opinion, this book is tasty brainfood. Now it's....
Rating: 
Summary: Good book but last chapter brings it all crashing down
Review: Great book, thrilling ideas, and you think you finally understand the universe. Until ...
In the last chapter the author comes up with a method to predict how long you, or your car, or your mother in law, will live.
As the answer, i.e. between 1/39 to 39 times his/her/its present age, is quite a good guess (particularly the upper limit), this 'rule'gives correct estimates most of the time. But of course it's crap. The time that you have to live, or your car, let alone your mother in law, depends also, and probably mostly, on intrinsic factors of construction and external factors like how you take care of the object. The intrinsic factors are a good predictor for expected lifetime, the external factors allow you to predict how far it might be off average.
If a clear thinking person like the author fails to acknowledge this, he is much too easily infatuated with glamorous but fundamentally silly ideas.
This I can see for the stuff in the last chapter, where I understand the ins and outs. If his thinking is shallow in that chapter, how can I be sure that it is not just as biassed and without self-criticism in the other chapters?
I would have rated the book 5 star for the rest, but the last chapter turns it down to 2 star, and then only to read it as an example of a failure.
Rating:
Summary: Material is engaging and approachable
Review: I heard the author of this book last weekend on NPR, and when he mentioned 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure' when talking about time travel, I knew this book was for me.
The author makes the material approaching by first introducing concepts from movies you may already know. Did you know that 'Back To The future' was an example of the 'many worlds theory', while 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure' was the 'one world theory'? Other movie references are made as an intro to concepts.
If it stopped there, it would be trite... But starting with a foundation that makes you feel comfortable, the author manages to explain some advanced principles of General Relativity such as time dilation, how time travel to the future is possible, if not very practical, and theories as to why time travel to the past may, and may not, be possible.
While you can't help get into philosophical discussions when pondering the possibility of going back in time, that is not the point of this book - the book is rooted in real science.
Rating:
Summary: A book that explains... and makes you think!
Review: If you are at all interested in time travel, various theories about the universe's creation and ending, and just strangely science fiction-seeming ideas, in my opinion this book is a must-read. Although you DO have to be prepared for some egotism and, as another reviewer mentioned, self-referencing, 'Time Travel in Einstein's Universe' is enormously helpful and entertaining. Being 13 and having been grabbed fairly recently by something bordering on an obsession about astronomy (mainly spacetime, black holes, and time travel), I can tell you with certainty that even if you don't need to have any experience with quantum mechanics or theories, and don't need to have taken a high school or college course about physics/mathematics/astronomy to understand this book. (although some of the explanations in this book made my head spin so much that I wish I DID have some experience with a few of the afore-mentioned teachings!)'Time Travel in Einstein's Universe' is certainly one of the most interesting and explanatory books I've read yet. It explains theories and conjectures, as well as basic fact and proven experiments (though the theories and conjectures are often the most interesting, of course!) about the many methods and consequences of time travel. It evokes completely new thoughts and ideas, stretches your brain and imagination, and explains everything in new and different ways I would never have thought possible. And the best thing about this book is its WAY of explaining things: It combines detailed diagrams and pictures with extensive and comprehensive explanations, and that combination is precisely what really leads you to understanding. If you are interested in time travel... well, what more can I say? Read and enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Hogwash
Review: The back of the book first got me interested. Even the first few chapters seemed very convincing. But at one point I began to realize that Gott had lost his mind. He gets to a point where he talks about being able to travel to the past and even meet yourself and he even implies that you could interact with yourself. I am really suprised that this guy, who is an authority on time travel, actually believes that bunk. He fails to realize that there is a difference between light and matter. Whenever you view anything from the past, including stars millions of light years away, that is all they are - light and nothing more. It isn't physical matter. You cannot go back in time and talk with yourself as Gott suggests. Your physical atomic matter exists in only one place at one time. When confronted with how the universe started, Gott simply states, "it started on its own". They teach you in grade school that matter cannot be created nor destroyed, and here we have the same old contradictory argument. Once Gott lost sight of this simple principle, the remainder of the book became a fairy tale not worth one's time reading. Give it up Gott. God created the universe and mankind. He wrote the complex formulas that you are bashing your brains out trying to figure out, and then he set the whole thing in motion. Any scientist who fails to acknowledge the Great Almighty as the One who started it all, is traveling down a path of vanity. Even Einstein acknowledged that science without God was futile. We didn't evolve from monkeys, like Gott suggests. Don't waste your money on this hogwash.
Rating: 
Summary: Great For Everyone
Review: This book is exciting to read if you're interested in time travel, regardless of how much math you understand. It gives a good balance between the mathematics of time travel, and concepts, such as paradoxes and multiple universes. I loved it even though I didn't understand most of the math.
Rating:
Summary: Time Travel in Einstein's Universe
Review: This book stands out from the now-ubiquitous books on quantum physics in several ways. First, it establishes a link between the science of quantum physics and the effect it has had on popular culture. It uses this as a jumping-off point for discussing some rather odd predictions of current theory, then delves into more detail than most similar books on why these predictions exist. The math is fairly easy to understand, and the book presents one of the most lucid explanations of the various states of vacuum and the possible geometries of space-time. The cover illustration is actually a 2-D model for a multidimensional concept that the author holds off until the end (and it is worth the wait), providing rare suspense to an otherwise dry topic. Provocative, though it stops just short of the neo-Taoist theosophy of _The Dancing Wu Li Masters_ and _The Tao of Physics_. You will enjoy, I promise! Also in Discover Magazine's list of recommended reading.
Rating:
Summary: Engaging
Review: Time Travel in Einstein's Universe by J. Richard Gott is an amazing book. It's not an easy read, however, at least not for me. I'm not a math-physics type, so I had to take time to understand some of the complex concepts discussed. It was definitely worth it. Gott, a professor of astrophysics at Princeton University, discusses almost every aspect of time travel, including what time is and why it seems to be unidirectional. He also covers the origin of the universe and what might have happened "before" it came into being, including oscillating universes, de Sitter spacetime, bubble universes, self creating universes, and universes tunneling from nothing. Most intriguing was the possibility that universes might be created like test-tube babies in a lab by supercivilizations. According to the author, by compressing a mass into an extremely high density black hole, "occasionally it would branch off by quantum tunneling to create a baby universe hidden inside the black hole. This branch could grow up to a large size without interfering with the lab (the trunk universe) (p. 191)." The possibility of a multiverse is also examined, as are alternative realities. Probably the most interesting part of the book for me was the final chapter, Report from the Future. Here the author uses the Copernican principle to predict various events. I have to admit, however, that by allowing himself a 95% range he makes his predictions pretty close to inescapable in some instances. For instance, he predicts the future longevity of the internet based upon a start date of 1969 as being more than 9 months (this prediction was made in 2001, so it has already exceeded the low end prediction) but less than 1,209 years! Those are pretty safe odds! Still, his extension of that principle to an analysis of our future as a species and of the character of life elsewhere is an interesting one. He points out that as he-or you or I-are not "special" in the scheme of things (any more than the earth is the center of the solar system, the sun the center of the galaxy or the galaxy the center of the universe), our time and its character are not likely to be special either. In short, whatever is examined should have a great likelihood of being the norm or average condition for that trait. The assumptions that he draws from this premise are truly impressive. For instance, since we are intelligent observers, if we apply the Copernican principle and assume that we are not special much can be said. He writes, "You should expect to live in an epoch of the universe in which the population of intelligent observers is high because most intelligent observers would live in such an epoch (p. 237)." He notes that the answer to Fermi's famous question about extraterrestrials, "Where are they?" would be that they "must still be sitting on their home planet, just like you; otherwise you would be special. Simple (p. 237)." With respect to the time in which the reader lives, he writes, "A graph of the population history of our species might...show low levels during its initial hunter-gather phase, then a brief spike to 12 billion because of civilization, followed by a crash back to hunter-gatherer levels. You expect to live in the spike because most people will (p. 224)." In short, you have little likelihood of living at either the beginning or the end of human culture, because most of the people who have ever lived are living now. Though it's not an easy book to understand, it's still a very engaging work.
Rating:
Summary: Time Travel in Einstein's Universe
Review: Time Travel in Einstein's Universe: The Physical Possibilities of Travel Through Time written by J. Richard Gott is a very well-written book about time travel and what it might consist. This book is easily read and is a delightfully refreshing as I found for the first time that the author was the first to completely explain Einstein's theory of relativity to me and I understand it and the ramifications. The author explains how some of the best science fiction can stimulate science fact in the world's finest scientific people. Thus, time travel has been conceived. The book only has five chapters all of which dedeal with the subject of time travel as seen of different angles. Cosmic strings, space folding upon itself, traveling back to a past event via two cosmic strings are discussed in detail along with wormholes and warpdrive. A warpdrive creates a U-shaped distortion in the spacetime creating a shortcut. A self-creating universe according to the author, in which the universes give birth to other universes, a time loop at the beginning allows the Universe to be its own mother. I found thiss book to be some serious mind candy... some very deep level physical philosophy... indeed. The prose moves quickly and you will not be bored as the author drives home his insightful points one after the other. The layperson will not be lost in space reading this book, but your mind could be bent as you read this very engaging book.
Rating:
Summary: An important book
Review: While the author's egotism is rather off-putting, this is still an important book. As other reviewers have pointed out, this is real science, not New-Age junk. This book presents border-of-the mainstream ideas about quantum gravity. It should be required reading not just for beginning quantum physicists, but also science-fiction writers (and fans) and thinking people in general. The final chapter has important philosophical implications. It explains why, while time travel could be possible, we humans will never achieve it anyway (only super-civilizations can time-travel and we are not likely to become one before going extinct)! Proving Gott wrong on this point will be mankind's mission for the next one million years.
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