Gerald James Whitrow

“New Scientist Vol. 2, No. 47 (Oct 10, 1957) includes "Newton and the Stars" by Dr. G.J.Whitrow”

“New Scientist Vol. 2, No. 35 (Jul 18, 1957) includes "Why the Sun Shines" by Dr. G.J.Whitrow”

“Professor Gerald Whitrow, who has died aged 87, wrote The Natural Philosophy of Time (1960) a tour de force that examined the subject from every side—mathematical, cosmological, historical, biological and psychological. ...As an opening for his talks, he would sometimes recount one of his favourite stories on time. It concerned the Russian poet Samuel Marshak, on a visit to London before 1914. Marshak's English was not too good and when he asked a man in the street "Please, what is time?", he received the surprised response, "But that's a big question. Why ask me?"”

“Perhaps the most important of Whitrow's books was The Natural Philosophy of Time. He showed that time can be studied independently of its magnitude. ...Whitrow's historical work included a paper on Robert Hooke.”

“Much of Dr. Whitrow's work is concerned with problems in cosmology and relativity. ...He has been editor of The Observatory Magazine and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.”

“By combining prodigious scholarship from the ancient Greeks to modern physicists, he argued persuasively in more than 100 academic papers and a string of books that an integrated, interdisciplinary understanding of time should be possible.”

“Whitrow's stance... is probably the first attempt to introduce such a philosophical approach in modern cosmology... it could be the a stimulus for new insights and a better comprehension of the physical foundations of cosmology itself.”

“One of the few authors to have explicitly connected the physical issue of the expansion of the universe with the philosophical topic of the metaphysical status of space is Gerald James Whitrow.”

“While at Oxford, he was much influenced by cosmologist, E. A. Milne. ...Whitrow is... remembered for his very loud voice which could be heard 'from miles away.'”

“Most of the illustrations in this book were scanned... from the volumes in which they originally appeared. One of these deserves special mention. It is... from the library of the late Gerald James Whitrow... I was honoured to receive this small book as a gift in 2001 from Professor Whitrow's widow, Magda... I wished to include a copy of this historic image in my own book both as a tribute to Pofessor Whitrow's memory and to express my sincere gratitude to all responsible for the gift.”

“The basic objection to attempts to deduce the unidirectional nature of time from concepts such as entropy is that they are attempts to reduce a more fundamental concept to a less fundamental one.”

“The history of natural philosophy is characterized by the interplay of two rival philosophies of time — one aiming at its "elimination" and the other based on the belief that it is fundamental and irreducible.”

“Our idea of the universe as a whole remains a product of the imagination.”

“To obtain a greater degree of permanence the time symbols of oral speech had to be converted into the space symbols of written speech. ...The crucial stage in the evolution of writing occurred when ideographs became phonograms...”

“Language itself inevitably introduced an element of permanence into the world. For, although speech itself is transitory, the conventionalized sound symbols of language transcended time.”

“The development of rational thought actually seems to have impeded man's appreciation for the significance of time. ...Belief that the ultimate reality is timeless is deeply rooted in human thinking, and the origin of rational investigation of the world was the search for permanent factors that lie behind the ever-changing pattern of events.”

“It must have required enormous effort for man to overcome his natural tendency to live like the animals in a continual present.”

“The famous palaeolithic paintings found in caves such as that at Lascaux in the Dordogne have been interpreted as evidence that, at least implicitly people were operating 20,000 or more years ago with teleological intent in terms of past, present, and future. It may well be that those responsible for the so-called 'Dancing Sorcerer' ...may have felt that the actual performance of the dance was insufficient, since they were concerned with the magical efficacy of the dance after it ended.”

“Man must have been conscious of memories and purposes long before he made any explicit distinction between past, present, and future.”

“It became clear that our Galaxy is only one system among many, and that the universe is far vaster than the particular stellar system to which the Sun and planets belong. Since then developments have been more rapid than at any time since the days of Copernicus, Digges and Bruno when the geocentric hypothesis of the cosmos received its death-blow.”