Fiction, Children - Fiction & Literature, Fiction Subjects

Einsteins Dreams Unabridged

Name: Einsteins Dreams Unabridged
Author: Alan Lightman
ISBN: 9781400077809

by Alan Lightman

Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Overview

A modern classic, Einstein’s Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he worked in a patent office in Switzerland. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds. In one, time is circular, so that people are fated to repeat triumphs and failures over and over. In another, there is a place where time stands still, visited by lovers and parents clinging to their children. In another, time is a nightingale, sometimes trapped by a bell jar.

Now translated into thirty languages, Einstein’s Dreams has inspired playwrights, dancers, musicians, and painters all over the world. In poetic vignettes, it explores the connections between science and art, the process of creativity, and ultimately the fragility of human existence.

About the Author, Alan Lightman

Alan Lightman was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and educated at Princeton and the California Institute of Technology. His books include the novels Good Benito, The Diagnosis, and Reunion; a collection of essays and fables, Dance for Two; and several books on science. His latest, a collection of essays, A Sense of the Mysterious, will be published by Pantheon books in January 2005. He lives in Massachusetts.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This beguiling first novel--a 16-week PW bestseller--envisions a series of fables about the nature of time that Einstein might have dreamt while putting the final touches on his theory of relativity. (Feb.)

Library Journal

In his first novel, Lightman focuses on three months during Albert Einstein's most remarkable year. In 1905, while working as an examiner at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern, Einstein published three important papers in Annals of Physics . Here Lightman re-creates the dreams that allegedly culminated in the famous essay on the relativity of time. Since most of the action is interior, this book is more lyric than narrative. One vision of a world without time is filled with vivid, haiku-like images. In another, time stands still, recalling the scene on the Grecian urn from Keats's ode. As a teacher of both physics and writing at M.I.T., Lightman offers provocative and elegantly wrought speculations on the nature of time. Recommended for most libraries.-- Albert Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville

Library Journal

In his first novel, Lightman focuses on three months during Albert Einstein's most remarkable year. In 1905, while working as an examiner at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern, Einstein published three important papers in Annals of Physics. Here Lightman re-creates the dreams that allegedly culminated in the famous essay on the relativity of time. Since most of the action is interior, this book is more lyric than narrative. One vision of a world without time is filled with vivid, haiku-like images. In another, time stands still, recalling the scene on the Grecian urn from Keats's ode. As a teacher of both physics and writing at M.I.T., Lightman offers provocative and elegantly wrought speculations on the nature of time.