ON The Origin OF Time

Documentary telling the little-known story of how Darwin came to write his great masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, a book which explains the wonderful variety of the natural world as emerging out of death and the struggle of life.

In the twenty years he took to develop a brilliant idea into a revolutionary book, Darwin went through a personal struggle every bit as turbulent as that of the natural world he observed. Fortunately, he left us an extraordinary record of his brilliant insights, observations of nature, and touching expressions of love and affection for those around him. He also wrote frank accounts of family tragedies, physical illnesses and moments of self-doubt, as he laboured towards publication of the book that would change the way we see the world.

The story is told with the benefit of Darwin's secret notes and correspondence, enhanced by natural history filming, powerful imagery from the time and contributions from leading contemporary biographers and scientists.

The First Conference of the International Society for the Study of Time was held at the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut at Oberwolfach in the Black Forest, Federal Republic of Germany from Sunday, 31 August to Saturday, 6 September, 1969. The origin of this conference and the formation of the Society goes back to a proposal due to J. T. Fraser that was discussed at a conference on "Interdisciplinary Perspectives of Time" held by the New York Academy of Sciences in January, 1966.

Taking readers on an entertaining journey through economic history, from the stone-age to the modern economy, Beinhocker explores how "complexity economics" provides provocative insights on issues ranging from creating adaptive organizations, to the evolutionary workings of stock markets, to new perspectives on government policies. A landmark book that shatters conventional economic theory, The Origin of Wealth will rewire our thinking about how we came to be here—and where we are going.

The Sixth Trieste Conference on Chemical Evolution for the first time has also been a Euroconference. This year we focused on "First Steps in the Origin of Life in the Universe". (Both this Centre and the ICGEB have been sponsors since we first started planning the series with Professors Abdus Salam and Cyril Ponnamperuma.)

In light of the barrage of popular books on physics and cosmology, one may question the need for another. Here, two books especially come to mind: Steven Weinberg's The First Three Minutes, written 12 years ago, and the recent best-seller ABriefHistory of Time by Stephen Hawking. The two books are complementary. Weinberg-Nobel prize winner/physicist-wrote from the standpoint of an elementary particle physicist with emphasis on the contents of the universe, whereas Hawking wrote more as a general relativist with emphasis on gravity and the geometry of the universe. Neither one, however, presented the complete story.

The origin of species has fascinated both biologists and the general public since the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859.