[2] Smolin asserts that overturning the existing orthodoxy is the best hope for finding solutions to contemporary physics problems, such as bringing gravity into line with the rest of the currently accepted models,[1] the nature of the quantum world and its unification with spacetime and cosmology.

He makes the case that by doing away with time, existing theories are missing a trick [...] According to Smolin, our picture of a timeless Universe stems from the assumption that all modern physics — quantum as well as classical — is predictive.

Inspired by the ideas of Brazilian philosopher and political theorist, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, who argues that social structures emerge without an underlying natural order or guiding principle, Smolin develops some of the ideas behind his first book, The Life of the Cosmos.The New York Times' James Gleick wrote that Smolin's arguments from science and history were "as provocative, original, and unsettling as any I’ve read in years," contradicting the commonly accepted views of H.G.

Wells, Hermann Minkowski, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Plato; Gleick predicted it will ring false to many contemporaries in theoretical physics.

"[7] For the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, author Rick Searle wrote that Time Reborn is "just as much a diagnosis of contemporary economic and political ills" as it is a book about physics.