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Loading... Einstein's Dreams (1992)by Alan Lightman
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. A difficult book to describe, choke full of food for the mind to masticate. a future re-reading is likely. Truly thought provoking ( ) Well writ short sketches of different types of time. Reminds me indeed of Calvino’s Invisible Cities but is not as poetic. Overall the connective narrative about Einstein and his friendship is more compelling story than the many sketches. I like the concept but I was left wondering if the concept could carry the content and make me feel something more than playful ideas. I *loved* this book! Lightman imagines what Einstein might have dreamt in the months before he finishes his special theory of relativity. In one dream, time runs backwards. In another, it stands still. In another, it is a circle and everything repeats itself endlessly. I've had this book sitting around for quite a while. A few weeks ago, the Chicago Tribune's Biblioracle* recommended it to someone, and I thought it was time to read it. Boy, am I glad! Thank you, John Warner! This book reminds me of Einstein's quote: "Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere." This book will get your imagination everywhere. what if, time flowed backward what if, time was circular what if, time had different speed in different places Could you imagine the world without time?
A beautifully written and thought-provoking book. The dreams do more than just catalog our neuroses. They also underscore some fundamental conflicts in the human relationship to time. THIS book contains 30 brief fictional dreams. All are about time, and all are dreamt by Albert Einstein in Berne, in the spring and early summer of 1905, as he works on his paper 'On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies' and proceeds inefficiently towards the special theory of relativity. Some contain distorted traces of his discoveries. In one dream, people live up mountains and build their houses on stilts, having discovered that time flows relatively more slowly as one moves further from the centre of the earth. In another, banks, factories and houses are all motorised and constantly on the move, for time is money and slows down as you accelerate, so the faster you go the more you have. Like the best fables, Lightman's seriousness is seductively cumulative. The writing, beautifully simple, conveys better than most texts the strangeness of Einstein's ideas. Belongs to Publisher SeriesHeyne Allgemeine Reihe (9719) Has the adaptationHas as a studyHas as a student's study guide
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML: In poetic vignettes, Einstein's Dreams explores the connections between science and art, the process of creativity, and ultimately the fragility of human existence. 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, and people are fated to repeat their 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. 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. .No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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