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兀丨賱丕賲 丌賷賳卮鬲丕賷賳
" 孬賲丞 賲賰丕賳 賷賯賮 賮賷賴 丕賱夭賲賳 爻丕賰賳丕賸 . 賯胤乇丕鬲 丕賱賲胤乇 賲毓賱賯丞 賮賷 丕賱賴賵丕亍 亘賱丕 丨乇丕賰 .鬲鬲丿賱賶 賳賵丕爻丕鬲 丕賱爻丕毓丕鬲 賮賷 丕賱賲賳鬲氐賮 , 賰賲爻丕賮乇 賷鬲丨乇賰 賲鬲亘丕胤卅丕賸 兀賰孬乇 賮兀賰孬乇 賱賷丿賳賵 賲賳 賴匕丕 丕賱賲賰丕賳 賲賳 兀賷丞 噩賴丞 賰丕賳鬲 ".
廿賳賴 毓丕賲 1905 賮賷 賲丿賷賳丞 亘賷乇賳 丕賱爻賵賷爻乇賷丞 . 賰丕賳 賲賵馗賮 亘乇丕亍丕鬲 丕禺鬲乇丕毓 卮丕亘 賷丨賱賲 兀丨賱丕賲丕賸 賲丿賴卮丞 毓賳 胤亘賷毓丞 丕賱夭賲賳 . 廿賳賴 兀賱亘乇鬲 丌賷賳卮鬲丕賷賳 丕賱匕賷 兀賵卮賰 毓賱賶 丕賱丕賳鬲賴丕亍 賲賳 賳馗乇賷丞 丕賱賳爻亘賷丞 . 賰賷賮 賰丕賳鬲 兀丨賱丕賲賴 賮賷 鬲賱賰 丕賱兀卮賴乇 丕賱賯賱賷賱丞 丕賱兀禺賷乇丞 賵丕賱賲賴賲丞 噩丿丕賸 責
賴賳丕 , 賮賷 賴匕丕 丕賱賰鬲丕亘 丕賱賮丕卅賯 賱賱毓丕丿丞 , 丕賱匕賷 丨馗賷 亘廿丨鬲賮丕亍 賰亘賷乇 , 賵毓賱賶 賲爻鬲賵賶 乇賮賷毓 , 賵丕賱匕賷 兀賱賮賴 毓丕賱賲 丕賱賮賷夭賷丕亍 丌賱賳 賱丕賷鬲賲丕賳 , 鬲爻鬲丨囟乇 孬賱丕孬賵賳 丨賰丕賷丞 禺乇丕賮賷丞 , 毓賵丕賱賲 賳馗乇賷丞 毓丿賷丿丞 丨賵賱 丕賱夭賲賳 , 賰丕賳鬲 賲賵丕囟賷毓 兀丨賱丕賲 賮賷 賱賷丕賱 賰孬賷乇 .
丕賱夭賲賳 丿丕卅乇賷 賮賷 兀丨丿 丕賱毓賵丕賱賲 , 賲賯丿乇 毓賱賶 爻賰丕賳賴 兀賳 賷賰乇乇賵丕 丕賱賳噩丕丨 賵丕賱亘賱丕亍 賲乇丞 鬲賱賵 兀禺乇賶 ...賵 賮賷 毓丕賱賲 丌禺乇 賷丨丕賵賱 丕賱乇噩丕賱 賵 丕賱賳爻丕亍 丕賱鬲賯丕胤 丕賱夭賲賳 丕賱匕賷 賷亘丿賵 賰毓賳丿賱賷亘 賮賷 廿賳丕亍 賷卮亘賴 丕賱噩乇爻 , 賵賮賷 丌禺乇 賱丕賷賵噩丿 夭賲賳 , 孬賲丞 賱丨馗丕鬲 賲鬲噩賲丿丞 賮賯胤.
賵 賴匕賴 賰賱賴丕 乇丐賶 鬲爻亘乇 噩賵賴乇 丕賱夭賲賳 , 賲睾丕賲乇丞 丕賱廿亘丿丕毓 , 毓馗賲丞 丕賱廿丨鬲賲丕賱 賵噩賲丕賱 ....兀丨賱丕賲 丌賷賳卮鬲丕賷賳 .
賱鬲丨賲賷賱 丕賱乇賵丕賷丞 賲賳 賴匕丕 丕賱乇丕亘胤 :
https://goo.gl/HOr2WQ
廿賳賴 毓丕賲 1905 賮賷 賲丿賷賳丞 亘賷乇賳 丕賱爻賵賷爻乇賷丞 . 賰丕賳 賲賵馗賮 亘乇丕亍丕鬲 丕禺鬲乇丕毓 卮丕亘 賷丨賱賲 兀丨賱丕賲丕賸 賲丿賴卮丞 毓賳 胤亘賷毓丞 丕賱夭賲賳 . 廿賳賴 兀賱亘乇鬲 丌賷賳卮鬲丕賷賳 丕賱匕賷 兀賵卮賰 毓賱賶 丕賱丕賳鬲賴丕亍 賲賳 賳馗乇賷丞 丕賱賳爻亘賷丞 . 賰賷賮 賰丕賳鬲 兀丨賱丕賲賴 賮賷 鬲賱賰 丕賱兀卮賴乇 丕賱賯賱賷賱丞 丕賱兀禺賷乇丞 賵丕賱賲賴賲丞 噩丿丕賸 責
賴賳丕 , 賮賷 賴匕丕 丕賱賰鬲丕亘 丕賱賮丕卅賯 賱賱毓丕丿丞 , 丕賱匕賷 丨馗賷 亘廿丨鬲賮丕亍 賰亘賷乇 , 賵毓賱賶 賲爻鬲賵賶 乇賮賷毓 , 賵丕賱匕賷 兀賱賮賴 毓丕賱賲 丕賱賮賷夭賷丕亍 丌賱賳 賱丕賷鬲賲丕賳 , 鬲爻鬲丨囟乇 孬賱丕孬賵賳 丨賰丕賷丞 禺乇丕賮賷丞 , 毓賵丕賱賲 賳馗乇賷丞 毓丿賷丿丞 丨賵賱 丕賱夭賲賳 , 賰丕賳鬲 賲賵丕囟賷毓 兀丨賱丕賲 賮賷 賱賷丕賱 賰孬賷乇 .
丕賱夭賲賳 丿丕卅乇賷 賮賷 兀丨丿 丕賱毓賵丕賱賲 , 賲賯丿乇 毓賱賶 爻賰丕賳賴 兀賳 賷賰乇乇賵丕 丕賱賳噩丕丨 賵丕賱亘賱丕亍 賲乇丞 鬲賱賵 兀禺乇賶 ...賵 賮賷 毓丕賱賲 丌禺乇 賷丨丕賵賱 丕賱乇噩丕賱 賵 丕賱賳爻丕亍 丕賱鬲賯丕胤 丕賱夭賲賳 丕賱匕賷 賷亘丿賵 賰毓賳丿賱賷亘 賮賷 廿賳丕亍 賷卮亘賴 丕賱噩乇爻 , 賵賮賷 丌禺乇 賱丕賷賵噩丿 夭賲賳 , 孬賲丞 賱丨馗丕鬲 賲鬲噩賲丿丞 賮賯胤.
賵 賴匕賴 賰賱賴丕 乇丐賶 鬲爻亘乇 噩賵賴乇 丕賱夭賲賳 , 賲睾丕賲乇丞 丕賱廿亘丿丕毓 , 毓馗賲丞 丕賱廿丨鬲賲丕賱 賵噩賲丕賱 ....兀丨賱丕賲 丌賷賳卮鬲丕賷賳 .
賱鬲丨賲賷賱 丕賱乇賵丕賷丞 賲賳 賴匕丕 丕賱乇丕亘胤 :
https://goo.gl/HOr2WQ
158 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
2010 people are currently reading
42952 people want to read
About the author
Alan Lightman
53听books1,268听followersAlan Lightman is an American writer, physicist, and social entrepreneur. Born in 1948, he was educated at Princeton and at the California Institute of Technology, where he received a PhD in theoretical physics. He has received five honorary doctoral degrees. Lightman has served on the faculties of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was the first person at MIT to receive dual faculty appointments in science and in the humanities. He is currently professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT. His scientific research in astrophysics has concerned
black holes, relativity theory, radiative processes, and the dynamics of systems of stars. His essays and articles have appeared in the Atlantic, Granta, Harper鈥檚, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, Salon, and many other publications. His essays are often chosen by the New York Times as among the best essays of the year. He is the author of 6 novels, several collections of essays, a memoir, and a book-length narrative poem, as well as several books on science. His novel Einstein鈥檚 Dreams was an international bestseller and has been the basis for dozens of independent theatrical and musical adaptations around the world. His novel The Diagnosis was a finalist for the National Book Award. His most recent books are The Accidental Universe, which was chosen by Brain Pickings as one of the 10 best books of 2014, his memoir Screening Room, which was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the best books of the year for 2016,
and Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine (2018), an extended meditation on science and religion 鈥� which was the basis for an essay
on PBS Newshour. Lightman is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also the founder of the Harpswell Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is 鈥渢o advance a new generation of women leaders in Southeast Asia.鈥� He has received the gold medal for humanitarian service from the government of Cambodia.
black holes, relativity theory, radiative processes, and the dynamics of systems of stars. His essays and articles have appeared in the Atlantic, Granta, Harper鈥檚, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, Salon, and many other publications. His essays are often chosen by the New York Times as among the best essays of the year. He is the author of 6 novels, several collections of essays, a memoir, and a book-length narrative poem, as well as several books on science. His novel Einstein鈥檚 Dreams was an international bestseller and has been the basis for dozens of independent theatrical and musical adaptations around the world. His novel The Diagnosis was a finalist for the National Book Award. His most recent books are The Accidental Universe, which was chosen by Brain Pickings as one of the 10 best books of 2014, his memoir Screening Room, which was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the best books of the year for 2016,
and Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine (2018), an extended meditation on science and religion 鈥� which was the basis for an essay
on PBS Newshour. Lightman is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also the founder of the Harpswell Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is 鈥渢o advance a new generation of women leaders in Southeast Asia.鈥� He has received the gold medal for humanitarian service from the government of Cambodia.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,437 reviews
July 17, 2023
This is a collection of 30 chapters dealing with the paradox of time through dreams. Albert Einstein was working in a patent office in 1905. Einstein's brain was working on relativity during that time before the theory of special relativity was published in June 1905. This book deals with his imagination dealing with multiple parallel worlds with different people and times just before publishing it. Each chapter deals with his dreams. Some may fascinate you while you might find some others boring, some you will find hard to understand. But each and every dream mentioned here is unique in its own way.
Freedom of choice in future
Lightman tells this through the chemist's thoughts regarding the future.
"In a world of fixed future, there can be no right or wrong. Right and wrong demand freedom of choice, but if each action is already chosen, there can be no freedom of choice. In a world of fixed future, no person is responsible. The rooms are already arranged."
My favorite three lines from this book.
"Some say it is best not to go near the center of time. Life is a vessel of sadness, but is noble to live life and without time there is no life. Others disagree. They would rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen, like a butterfly mounted in a case."
"The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone"
"But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just an illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?"
This book has a lot of ideas that you need to contemplate for a long time. Even though Physics is the underlying theme running through it, you don't need to be a Physicist to understand it. On the other hand, there is also a probability that you won't understand this book even if you are an expert in Physics. It is because there are also a lot of artistic musings in it which can't be explained with Physics alone.
Some books will give you different ideas when you read them at different times. This is a similar one that needs multiple revisits to properly understand it and relish the experience of reading it.
This creation is definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but if you are the lucky few who loved it, you will adore the experience of reading it again and again.
鈥斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌�
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Freedom of choice in future
Lightman tells this through the chemist's thoughts regarding the future.
"In a world of fixed future, there can be no right or wrong. Right and wrong demand freedom of choice, but if each action is already chosen, there can be no freedom of choice. In a world of fixed future, no person is responsible. The rooms are already arranged."
My favorite three lines from this book.
"Some say it is best not to go near the center of time. Life is a vessel of sadness, but is noble to live life and without time there is no life. Others disagree. They would rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen, like a butterfly mounted in a case."
"The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone"
"But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just an illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?"
This book has a lot of ideas that you need to contemplate for a long time. Even though Physics is the underlying theme running through it, you don't need to be a Physicist to understand it. On the other hand, there is also a probability that you won't understand this book even if you are an expert in Physics. It is because there are also a lot of artistic musings in it which can't be explained with Physics alone.
Some books will give you different ideas when you read them at different times. This is a similar one that needs multiple revisits to properly understand it and relish the experience of reading it.
This creation is definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but if you are the lucky few who loved it, you will adore the experience of reading it again and again.
鈥斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌�
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September 15, 2021
Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman
Einstein's Dreams is a 1992 novel by Alan Lightman that was an international bestseller and has been translated into thirty languages.
The novel fictionalizes Albert Einstein as a young scientist who is troubled by dreams as he works on his theory of relativity in 1905. The book consists of 30 chapters, each exploring one dream about time that Einstein had during this period.
The framework of the book consists of a prelude, three interludes, and an epilogue. Einstein's friend, Michele Besso, appears in these sections.
Each dream involves a conception of time. Some scenarios may involve exaggerations of true phenomena related to relativity, and some may be entirely fantastical. The book demonstrates the relationship each human being has to time, and thus spiritually affirms Einstein's theory of relativity.
鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 乇賵夭 賴噩丿賴賲 賲丕賴 賮賵乇蹖賴 爻丕賱 1998賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 乇賵蹖鈥嵷з団€嵷й屸€� 丕賳鈥嵺屸€嵷粹€嵷€嵸嗏€� (丕蹖賳卮鬲蹖賳)貨 賳賵卮鬲賴: 丌賱賳 賱丕蹖鬲爻貨 賲鬲乇噩賲: 賲賴鬲丕亘 賲馗賱賵賲丕賳貨 賲卮禺氐丕鬲 賳卮乇 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳卮乇 趩卮賲賴貨 1376貙 丿乇 112氐貨 賲賵囟賵毓 乇賵蹖丕賴丕蹖 丕賳蹖卮鬲蹖賳 丕夭 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏丕賳 丕蹖丕賱丕鬲 賲鬲丨丿賴 丌賲乇蹖讴丕 - 爻丿賴 20賲
賲丕 鬲賳賴丕 蹖讴 趩賴乇賴 丕夭 夭賲丕賳 乇丕 賲蹖鈥徹ㄛ屬嗃屬呚� 賵賱蹖 卮丕蹖丿 亘賴 賳賵毓蹖 夭賲丕賳鈥徺囏й� 诏賵賳丕诏賵賳蹖貙 丿乇 丿賳蹖丕蹖 賵丕賯毓蹖 賲丕 噩乇蹖丕賳 丿丕卮鬲賴 亘丕卮丿貙 賵 丕蹖賳 賲蹖鈥徹堌з嗀� 亘乇賴丕賳蹖 亘丕卮丿貙 亘乇丕蹖 亘爻蹖丕乇蹖 丕夭 卮诏賮鬲蹖鈥徺囏й� 丕胤乇丕賮 賲丕貙 讴賴 賳賲蹖鈥徹堌з嗃屬� 亘乇丕蹖 丌賳鈥屬囏ж� 卮乇丨蹖 賯丕亘賱 倬匕蹖乇卮 丿丕卮鬲賴 亘丕卮蹖賲貨 芦丌賱賳 賱丕蹖鬲賲賳禄貙 芦丕蹖賳蹖卮鬲蹖賳禄 乇丕貙 丿乇 乇賵夭賴丕蹖蹖 禺蹖丕賱 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗀� 讴賴 賴賳賵夭 亘賴 芦賮乇囟蹖賴鈥� 蹖 夭賲丕賳禄貙 丿爻鬲 賳蹖丕賮鬲賴 丕賳丿貙 賵 賴乇 讴丿丕賲 丕夭 賮乇囟蹖賴 鈥徺囏й屰� 乇丕貙 讴賴 芦丕蹖賳蹖卮鬲蹖賳禄 賲蹖鈥徹堌з嗀池� 禺蹖丕賱 讴賳丿貙 丨丿爻 夭丿賴貙 賵 丿丕爻鬲丕賳蹖 乇丕噩毓 鈥屫ㄙ� 丌賳 賳賵卮鬲賴 丕爻鬲貙 丿乇 丿丕爻鬲丕賳鈥徺囏ж� 爻丕讴賳丕賳 卮賴乇 讴賵趩讴蹖 丿乇 芦爻賵卅蹖爻禄 乇丕貙 賮乇囟 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗀� 讴賴 丌賳 夭賲丕賳 丿乇 丿賳蹖丕蹖鈥屫簇з� 噩乇蹖丕賳 丿丕乇丿貙 賵 亘賴 丕蹖賳 鬲乇鬲蹖亘 趩賴乇賴鈥� 賴丕蹖 诏賵賳丕诏賵賳 夭賲丕賳 乇丕貙 亘丕夭诏賵 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗀�
丿乇 蹖讴蹖 丕夭 丕蹖賳 丿賳蹖丕賴丕貙 夭賲丕賳 賴賲丕賳賳丿 蹖讴 芦丿丕蹖乇賴禄 丕爻鬲貙 讴賴 倬爻 丕夭 蹖讴 丿賵乇貙 鬲讴乇丕乇 賲蹖鈥徹促堌� 賵 丕蹖賳 丿賵乇貙 鬲丕 亘蹖鈥徺嗁囏й屫� 丕丿丕賲賴 丿丕乇丿貨 倬匕蹖乇卮 丕蹖賳 賮乇囟蹖賴貙 賲蹖鈥徹堌з嗀� 乇禺丿丕丿賴丕蹖蹖 乇丕貙 讴賴 诏丕賴 賲蹖鈥徹з嗀屫篡屬�: 倬蹖卮鬲乇賴丕 亘乇丕蹖 賲丕 鬲讴乇丕乇 卮丿賴貙 鬲賵噩蹖賴 賲蹖讴賳丿貨
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丿乇 丿賳蹖丕蹖 丿蹖诏乇蹖貙 賴乇趩賴 丕夭 賲乇讴夭 夭賲蹖賳 丿賵乇鬲乇 卮賵蹖賲貙 夭賲丕賳 丿蹖乇鬲乇 賲蹖鈥徻柏必� 賵 鬲兀孬蹖乇 讴賲鬲乇蹖 乇賵蹖 丌丿賲鈥徺囏� 賲蹖鈥徻柏ж必� 亘賳丕亘乇丕蹖賳 賲乇丿賲 讴賵卮卮 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗁嗀� 丿乇 丕乇鬲賮丕毓丕鬲 夭賳丿诏蹖 讴賳賳丿貙 賵 禺丕賳賴鈥� 賴丕卮丕賳 乇丕 乇賵蹖 倬丕蹖賴鈥� 賴丕蹖 亘賱賳丿 賲蹖鈥徹池ж操嗀� 鬲丕 丿蹖乇鬲乇 倬蹖乇 卮賵賳丿貙 賵 亘蹖卮鬲乇 夭賳丿诏蹖 讴賳賳丿
丿乇 蹖讴 丿賳蹖丕蹖 丿蹖诏乇: 噩丕蹖 诏匕卮鬲賴 賵 丌蹖賳丿賴 丿蹖诏乇 賲蹖鈥徹促堌� 賳禺爻鬲 賳鬲蹖噩賴鈥� 蹖 讴丕乇 乇禺 賲蹖鈥徹囏� 爻倬爻 丌賳 乇禺丿丕丿 乇賵蹖 賲蹖鈥徹囏� 丿乇 丕蹖賳 丿賳蹖丕 讴賴 賴蹖趩 趩蹖夭貙 賯丕亘賱 倬蹖卮 亘蹖賳蹖 賳蹖爻鬲貙 賲蹖鈥徹堌з� 賵丕賯毓蹖鈥徹� 夭賳丿诏蹖 讴乇丿貙 夭蹖乇丕 賴蹖趩 讴丕乇蹖貙 賳賴 亘賴 禺丕胤乇 丿賱丕蹖賱蹖 丿乇 亘诏匕卮鬲賴貙 賵 賳賴 亘乇丕蹖 賳鬲丕蹖噩卮 丿乇 丌蹖賳丿賴 丕爻鬲 讴賴 丕賳噩丕賲 賲蹖鈥徹促堌� 亘賱讴賴 氐乇賮丕賸 亘乇丕蹖 禺賵丿 丌賳 讴丕乇 丕爻鬲貙 讴賴 丕賳噩丕賲卮 賲蹖鈥徹囒屬�
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丿乇 丿賳蹖丕蹖 丿蹖诏乇蹖: 夭賲丕賳 亘賴鈥� 氐賵乇鬲 芦丿賵丕蹖乇 賲鬲丨丿丕賱賲乇讴夭蹖禄貙 亘賴 鈥屫迟堐� 禺丕乇噩 诏爻鬲乇丿賴 丕爻鬲貙 賵 丿乇 賲乇讴夭 亘蹖鈥徹壁┴� 丕爻鬲貨 丿乇 賲乇讴夭 賲蹖鈥徹堌з� 賱丨馗賴 賴丕蹖 丕亘丿蹖 爻丕禺鬲貨 诏乇賵賴蹖 亘乇 丕蹖賳 亘丕賵乇賳丿 讴賴 亘賴鬲乇 丕爻鬲 亘賴 賲乇讴夭 夭賲丕賳 賳夭丿蹖讴 賳卮丿貙 丨蹖丕鬲 賲賳卮兀 睾賲 丕爻鬲貙 賵 亘賴鬲乇 丕爻鬲 夭賵丿鬲乇 鬲賲丕賲 卮賵丿貙 诏乇賵賴蹖 毓讴爻 丕蹖賳 賮讴乇 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗁嗀� 賵 鬲乇噩蹖丨 賲蹖鈥徹囐嗀� 丕夭 禺賵卮亘禺鬲蹖 丕亘丿蹖貙 賱匕鬲 亘亘乇賳丿
丿乇 丿賳蹖丕蹖 丿蹖诏乇蹖: 芦夭賲丕賳 賵噩賵丿 賳丿丕乇丿禄貙 丿乇 丌賳噩丕 鬲賳賴丕 鬲氐賵蹖乇賴丕 賵噩賵丿 丿丕乇賳丿
丿乇 蹖讴 丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 丿蹖诏乇: 芦禺丕胤乇賴禄 賵噩賵丿 賳丿丕乇丿
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丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 丌賳 鬲賳賴丕 芦蹖讴 乇賵夭 夭賳丿诏蹖禄 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗁嗀�
丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 丌賳貙 夭賲丕賳貙 芦丨爻蹖 賴賲趩賵 亘賵蹖丕蹖蹖 蹖丕 趩卮丕蹖蹖禄 丕爻鬲
丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 丌賳 夭賳丿诏蹖 亘蹖 倬丕蹖丕賳禄 丕爻鬲
丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 丌賳 夭賲丕賳 芦讴賲蹖鬲禄 賳丿丕乇丿貙 賵 鬲賳賴丕 芦讴蹖賮蹖鬲禄 丿丕乇丿
丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 丌賳 亘乇丕蹖 夭賲丕賳貙 乇賵蹖 芦亘購毓丿 夭賲丕賳禄貙 賲蹖鈥徹堌з� 賲禺鬲氐丕鬲蹖 賯丕卅賱 卮丿
丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 夭賲丕賳 丿乇 丌賳貙 蹖讴 芦丨丕丿孬賴鈥� 蹖 賲丨賱蹖禄 丕爻鬲貙 賵 丿乇 賳鬲蹖噩賴 賴乇 卮賴乇貙 鬲賳賴丕爻鬲
丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 芦诏匕卮鬲賴禄 丿乇 丌賳 賵噩賵丿 賳丿丕乇丿貨
賵 丿乇 賳賴丕蹖鬲 丕蹖賳蹖卮鬲蹖賳 亘丕 亘乇乇爻蹖 鬲賲丕賲 丕蹖賳 夭賲丕賳鈥徺囏ж� 丿乇 丿賳蹖丕賴丕蹖 賲禺鬲賱賮貙 亘賴 賳馗乇蹖賴鈥� 蹖 夭賲丕賳 禺賵丿 丿爻鬲 賲蹖鈥徾屫жㄙ嗀� 丕賱亘鬲賴 讴賴 亘丕 賵噩賵丿 丨噩賲 讴賲 讴鬲丕亘貙 賳賲蹖鈥徹堌з� 丌賳 乇丕 爻乇蹖毓 禺賵丕賳丿貙 夭蹖乇丕 亘乇丕蹖 丿乇讴 賴乇 讴丿丕賲 丕夭 丕蹖賳 丿賳蹖丕賴丕 亘賴 夭賲丕賳 賳蹖丕夭 賴爻鬲
鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 19/08/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 23/06/1400賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
Einstein's Dreams is a 1992 novel by Alan Lightman that was an international bestseller and has been translated into thirty languages.
The novel fictionalizes Albert Einstein as a young scientist who is troubled by dreams as he works on his theory of relativity in 1905. The book consists of 30 chapters, each exploring one dream about time that Einstein had during this period.
The framework of the book consists of a prelude, three interludes, and an epilogue. Einstein's friend, Michele Besso, appears in these sections.
Each dream involves a conception of time. Some scenarios may involve exaggerations of true phenomena related to relativity, and some may be entirely fantastical. The book demonstrates the relationship each human being has to time, and thus spiritually affirms Einstein's theory of relativity.
鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 乇賵夭 賴噩丿賴賲 賲丕賴 賮賵乇蹖賴 爻丕賱 1998賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 乇賵蹖鈥嵷з団€嵷й屸€� 丕賳鈥嵺屸€嵷粹€嵷€嵸嗏€� (丕蹖賳卮鬲蹖賳)貨 賳賵卮鬲賴: 丌賱賳 賱丕蹖鬲爻貨 賲鬲乇噩賲: 賲賴鬲丕亘 賲馗賱賵賲丕賳貨 賲卮禺氐丕鬲 賳卮乇 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳卮乇 趩卮賲賴貨 1376貙 丿乇 112氐貨 賲賵囟賵毓 乇賵蹖丕賴丕蹖 丕賳蹖卮鬲蹖賳 丕夭 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏丕賳 丕蹖丕賱丕鬲 賲鬲丨丿賴 丌賲乇蹖讴丕 - 爻丿賴 20賲
賲丕 鬲賳賴丕 蹖讴 趩賴乇賴 丕夭 夭賲丕賳 乇丕 賲蹖鈥徹ㄛ屬嗃屬呚� 賵賱蹖 卮丕蹖丿 亘賴 賳賵毓蹖 夭賲丕賳鈥徺囏й� 诏賵賳丕诏賵賳蹖貙 丿乇 丿賳蹖丕蹖 賵丕賯毓蹖 賲丕 噩乇蹖丕賳 丿丕卮鬲賴 亘丕卮丿貙 賵 丕蹖賳 賲蹖鈥徹堌з嗀� 亘乇賴丕賳蹖 亘丕卮丿貙 亘乇丕蹖 亘爻蹖丕乇蹖 丕夭 卮诏賮鬲蹖鈥徺囏й� 丕胤乇丕賮 賲丕貙 讴賴 賳賲蹖鈥徹堌з嗃屬� 亘乇丕蹖 丌賳鈥屬囏ж� 卮乇丨蹖 賯丕亘賱 倬匕蹖乇卮 丿丕卮鬲賴 亘丕卮蹖賲貨 芦丌賱賳 賱丕蹖鬲賲賳禄貙 芦丕蹖賳蹖卮鬲蹖賳禄 乇丕貙 丿乇 乇賵夭賴丕蹖蹖 禺蹖丕賱 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗀� 讴賴 賴賳賵夭 亘賴 芦賮乇囟蹖賴鈥� 蹖 夭賲丕賳禄貙 丿爻鬲 賳蹖丕賮鬲賴 丕賳丿貙 賵 賴乇 讴丿丕賲 丕夭 賮乇囟蹖賴 鈥徺囏й屰� 乇丕貙 讴賴 芦丕蹖賳蹖卮鬲蹖賳禄 賲蹖鈥徹堌з嗀池� 禺蹖丕賱 讴賳丿貙 丨丿爻 夭丿賴貙 賵 丿丕爻鬲丕賳蹖 乇丕噩毓 鈥屫ㄙ� 丌賳 賳賵卮鬲賴 丕爻鬲貙 丿乇 丿丕爻鬲丕賳鈥徺囏ж� 爻丕讴賳丕賳 卮賴乇 讴賵趩讴蹖 丿乇 芦爻賵卅蹖爻禄 乇丕貙 賮乇囟 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗀� 讴賴 丌賳 夭賲丕賳 丿乇 丿賳蹖丕蹖鈥屫簇з� 噩乇蹖丕賳 丿丕乇丿貙 賵 亘賴 丕蹖賳 鬲乇鬲蹖亘 趩賴乇賴鈥� 賴丕蹖 诏賵賳丕诏賵賳 夭賲丕賳 乇丕貙 亘丕夭诏賵 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗀�
丿乇 蹖讴蹖 丕夭 丕蹖賳 丿賳蹖丕賴丕貙 夭賲丕賳 賴賲丕賳賳丿 蹖讴 芦丿丕蹖乇賴禄 丕爻鬲貙 讴賴 倬爻 丕夭 蹖讴 丿賵乇貙 鬲讴乇丕乇 賲蹖鈥徹促堌� 賵 丕蹖賳 丿賵乇貙 鬲丕 亘蹖鈥徺嗁囏й屫� 丕丿丕賲賴 丿丕乇丿貨 倬匕蹖乇卮 丕蹖賳 賮乇囟蹖賴貙 賲蹖鈥徹堌з嗀� 乇禺丿丕丿賴丕蹖蹖 乇丕貙 讴賴 诏丕賴 賲蹖鈥徹з嗀屫篡屬�: 倬蹖卮鬲乇賴丕 亘乇丕蹖 賲丕 鬲讴乇丕乇 卮丿賴貙 鬲賵噩蹖賴 賲蹖讴賳丿貨
丿乇 丿賳蹖丕蹖 丿蹖诏乇蹖貙 亘乇毓讴爻 丿賳蹖丕蹖 倬蹖卮蹖賳貙 夭賲丕賳 賴賲丕賳賳丿: 蹖讴 芦乇賵丿禺丕賳賴禄 噩乇蹖丕賳 丿丕乇丿貙 賵 乇賵 亘賴 噩賱賵 亘賴 倬蹖卮 賲蹖乇賵丿貨 丨丕賱丕 丕诏乇貙 讴爻蹖 亘乇丕蹖 丕卮鬲亘丕賴蹖貙 賵 蹖丕 乇禺丿丕丿蹖貙 丕夭 噩乇蹖丕賳 噩丿丕 卮賵丿貙 賵 亘賴 賵爻蹖賱賴鈥� 蹖 蹖讴 噩乇蹖丕賳 丕賳丨乇丕賮蹖貙 亘賴 夭賲丕賳 倬蹖卮鬲乇 亘乇诏乇丿丿貙 賲蹖鈥徹堌з嗀� 丌蹖賳丿賴 乇丕 鬲睾蹖蹖乇 丿賴丿貨 賴乇 乇禺丿丕丿 讴賵趩讴蹖貙 讴賴 丕蹖賳 卮禺氐 亘丕毓孬 丌賳 卮賵丿貙 賲蹖鈥徹堌з嗀� 爻蹖乇 鬲丕乇蹖禺 乇丕貙 丿蹖诏乇 (丿诏乇诏賵賳) 讴賳丿貨 丕蹖賳 賮乇囟蹖賴貙 乇賮鬲丕乇 丌丿賲鈥徺囏й� 毓噩蹖亘蹖 乇丕貙 讴賴 丕夭 丕賳爻丕賳鈥徺囏й� 丿蹖诏乇貙 亘賴鈥� 卮丿鬲 賲蹖鈥徻臂屫操嗀� 賵 爻毓蹖 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗁嗀� 亘丕毓孬 讴賵趩讴鬲乇蹖賳 乇賵蹖丿丕丿貙 丿乇 夭賳丿诏蹖 丿蹖诏乇丕賳 賳卮賵賳丿貙 鬲賵噩蹖賴 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗀� 丌丿賲鈥徺囏й屰� 讴賴 賲丕 亘賴 丌賳鈥屬囏ж� 亘蹖卮鈥� 丕夭 丨丿 賲氐賱丨鬲鈥� 丕賳丿蹖卮 賲蹖鈥徻堐屰屬�
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丿乇 丿賳蹖丕蹖 丿蹖诏乇蹖貙 賴乇趩賴 丕夭 賲乇讴夭 夭賲蹖賳 丿賵乇鬲乇 卮賵蹖賲貙 夭賲丕賳 丿蹖乇鬲乇 賲蹖鈥徻柏必� 賵 鬲兀孬蹖乇 讴賲鬲乇蹖 乇賵蹖 丌丿賲鈥徺囏� 賲蹖鈥徻柏ж必� 亘賳丕亘乇丕蹖賳 賲乇丿賲 讴賵卮卮 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗁嗀� 丿乇 丕乇鬲賮丕毓丕鬲 夭賳丿诏蹖 讴賳賳丿貙 賵 禺丕賳賴鈥� 賴丕卮丕賳 乇丕 乇賵蹖 倬丕蹖賴鈥� 賴丕蹖 亘賱賳丿 賲蹖鈥徹池ж操嗀� 鬲丕 丿蹖乇鬲乇 倬蹖乇 卮賵賳丿貙 賵 亘蹖卮鬲乇 夭賳丿诏蹖 讴賳賳丿
丿乇 蹖讴 丿賳蹖丕蹖 丿蹖诏乇: 噩丕蹖 诏匕卮鬲賴 賵 丌蹖賳丿賴 丿蹖诏乇 賲蹖鈥徹促堌� 賳禺爻鬲 賳鬲蹖噩賴鈥� 蹖 讴丕乇 乇禺 賲蹖鈥徹囏� 爻倬爻 丌賳 乇禺丿丕丿 乇賵蹖 賲蹖鈥徹囏� 丿乇 丕蹖賳 丿賳蹖丕 讴賴 賴蹖趩 趩蹖夭貙 賯丕亘賱 倬蹖卮 亘蹖賳蹖 賳蹖爻鬲貙 賲蹖鈥徹堌з� 賵丕賯毓蹖鈥徹� 夭賳丿诏蹖 讴乇丿貙 夭蹖乇丕 賴蹖趩 讴丕乇蹖貙 賳賴 亘賴 禺丕胤乇 丿賱丕蹖賱蹖 丿乇 亘诏匕卮鬲賴貙 賵 賳賴 亘乇丕蹖 賳鬲丕蹖噩卮 丿乇 丌蹖賳丿賴 丕爻鬲 讴賴 丕賳噩丕賲 賲蹖鈥徹促堌� 亘賱讴賴 氐乇賮丕賸 亘乇丕蹖 禺賵丿 丌賳 讴丕乇 丕爻鬲貙 讴賴 丕賳噩丕賲卮 賲蹖鈥徹囒屬�
丿乇 丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 丿蹖诏乇貙 诏匕卮鬲 夭賲丕賳貙 芦毓丕賲賱 賳馗賲禄 丕爻鬲貙 賵 賴乇 趩蹖夭 賳丕賲乇鬲亘蹖貙 亘賴鈥� 賲乇賵乇 夭賲丕賳 賲乇鬲亘 禺賵丕賴丿 卮丿貙 賵 賳蹖丕夭蹖 亘賴 爻毓蹖: 亘乇丕蹖 鬲乇賲蹖賲 賵 賲乇鬲亘 讴乇丿賳 賲爻丕卅賱貙 賳蹖爻鬲
丿乇 丿賳蹖丕蹖 丿蹖诏乇蹖: 夭賲丕賳 亘賴鈥� 氐賵乇鬲 芦丿賵丕蹖乇 賲鬲丨丿丕賱賲乇讴夭蹖禄貙 亘賴 鈥屫迟堐� 禺丕乇噩 诏爻鬲乇丿賴 丕爻鬲貙 賵 丿乇 賲乇讴夭 亘蹖鈥徹壁┴� 丕爻鬲貨 丿乇 賲乇讴夭 賲蹖鈥徹堌з� 賱丨馗賴 賴丕蹖 丕亘丿蹖 爻丕禺鬲貨 诏乇賵賴蹖 亘乇 丕蹖賳 亘丕賵乇賳丿 讴賴 亘賴鬲乇 丕爻鬲 亘賴 賲乇讴夭 夭賲丕賳 賳夭丿蹖讴 賳卮丿貙 丨蹖丕鬲 賲賳卮兀 睾賲 丕爻鬲貙 賵 亘賴鬲乇 丕爻鬲 夭賵丿鬲乇 鬲賲丕賲 卮賵丿貙 诏乇賵賴蹖 毓讴爻 丕蹖賳 賮讴乇 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗁嗀� 賵 鬲乇噩蹖丨 賲蹖鈥徹囐嗀� 丕夭 禺賵卮亘禺鬲蹖 丕亘丿蹖貙 賱匕鬲 亘亘乇賳丿
丿乇 丿賳蹖丕蹖 丿蹖诏乇蹖: 芦夭賲丕賳 賵噩賵丿 賳丿丕乇丿禄貙 丿乇 丌賳噩丕 鬲賳賴丕 鬲氐賵蹖乇賴丕 賵噩賵丿 丿丕乇賳丿
丿乇 蹖讴 丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 丿蹖诏乇: 芦禺丕胤乇賴禄 賵噩賵丿 賳丿丕乇丿
賵 賴賲蹖賳 诏賵賳賴 氐丨亘鬲 丕夭 丿賳蹖丕賴丕蹖 丿蹖诏乇貙 亘丕 夭賲丕賳鈥徺囏й� 丿蹖诏乇 丕爻鬲貙 丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 夭賲丕賳 丿乇 丌賳 芦亘乇毓讴爻禄 賲蹖鈥徻柏必�
丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 丌賳 鬲賳賴丕 芦蹖讴 乇賵夭 夭賳丿诏蹖禄 賲蹖鈥徻┵嗁嗀�
丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 丌賳貙 夭賲丕賳貙 芦丨爻蹖 賴賲趩賵 亘賵蹖丕蹖蹖 蹖丕 趩卮丕蹖蹖禄 丕爻鬲
丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 丌賳 夭賳丿诏蹖 亘蹖 倬丕蹖丕賳禄 丕爻鬲
丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 丌賳 夭賲丕賳 芦讴賲蹖鬲禄 賳丿丕乇丿貙 賵 鬲賳賴丕 芦讴蹖賮蹖鬲禄 丿丕乇丿
丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿乇 丌賳 亘乇丕蹖 夭賲丕賳貙 乇賵蹖 芦亘購毓丿 夭賲丕賳禄貙 賲蹖鈥徹堌з� 賲禺鬲氐丕鬲蹖 賯丕卅賱 卮丿
丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 夭賲丕賳 丿乇 丌賳貙 蹖讴 芦丨丕丿孬賴鈥� 蹖 賲丨賱蹖禄 丕爻鬲貙 賵 丿乇 賳鬲蹖噩賴 賴乇 卮賴乇貙 鬲賳賴丕爻鬲
丿賳蹖丕蹖蹖 讴賴 芦诏匕卮鬲賴禄 丿乇 丌賳 賵噩賵丿 賳丿丕乇丿貨
賵 丿乇 賳賴丕蹖鬲 丕蹖賳蹖卮鬲蹖賳 亘丕 亘乇乇爻蹖 鬲賲丕賲 丕蹖賳 夭賲丕賳鈥徺囏ж� 丿乇 丿賳蹖丕賴丕蹖 賲禺鬲賱賮貙 亘賴 賳馗乇蹖賴鈥� 蹖 夭賲丕賳 禺賵丿 丿爻鬲 賲蹖鈥徾屫жㄙ嗀� 丕賱亘鬲賴 讴賴 亘丕 賵噩賵丿 丨噩賲 讴賲 讴鬲丕亘貙 賳賲蹖鈥徹堌з� 丌賳 乇丕 爻乇蹖毓 禺賵丕賳丿貙 夭蹖乇丕 亘乇丕蹖 丿乇讴 賴乇 讴丿丕賲 丕夭 丕蹖賳 丿賳蹖丕賴丕 亘賴 夭賲丕賳 賳蹖丕夭 賴爻鬲
鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 19/08/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 23/06/1400賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
March 10, 2014
Some of the best fun I have had in recent years of reading came in the two hours it took me to read this (including frantic back-tracks and hop-skips) fantastic book. Time is the hero of this collection and comes veiled in every twisted garb we can conceive, or rather, that Einstein can dream up. Einstein in his mad canter towards discovering the most revolutionary idea in science tumbles right down an imaginary wonderland in this book.
What comes out of the recesses of Einstein's brooding on the nature of time and its relation to our lives is a montage of dreams that stretch our imagination to its limits. Time goes backwards, becomes personal, loops in on itself, slows down and speeds up according to your speeds and even stops altogether in his various dreams. But in the process we also see our own natures reflected in these bizarre behaviors that Einstein (or rather Lightman) subjects our protagonist to.
While each of the 'worlds' are immensely entertaining and thought-provoking, the real crux of the book comes out in the interludes, which are the only times we meet the dreamer - Einstein. The book is an exploration of the twists and turns of the creative process, of the blind alleys and the arcane notions, the tomfoolery and the circus contortions that the creative imagination has to be twisted to before a coherent idea emerges.
Of the dreams, numbering around thirty, some are particularly imaginative while others are variations on earlier themes. At first I was disappointed to encounter these variations and slight modifications, until I realized that Einstein, the dreamer/thinker, has to revisit ideas and try these mutations before he can proceed with them or discard them. Some of the ideas had to be short, some elaborate, some gripping, some boring and some outlandishly silly.
But through it all, the constant feeling, almost magical, of being part of this evolution of thought and of peering into the wildest musings (even if imagined) that led to the conception of time as we know today makes the book a treasure to be revisited and indulged in at every opportunity.
Did I mention that I read the book three times today?
April 22, 2025
Poetic twists on the paradoxes of time.
The quotidian becomes extraordinary and unsettling.
Time travel needn't involve machines or blue boxes (sorry, Apatt!): Lightman makes it leap off the page and into your mind, leaving you questioning the very root of reality.
Now that I am reading Borges, I assume Lightman was influenced by him (and maybe others), in particular, the short story, Tl枚n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
FORMAT
There are about 30 very short chapters (typically, three pages of well-spaced text). Each uses an artist's palette to conjure ordinary scenes of human interaction in a small Swiss Germanic town.
Everyman, everyday, anytown - except that the unique way time operates in each place creates a uniquely alien culture.
It's full of dilemmas and paradoxes, and the book itself is a paradox: it's so little and light, but it contains SO much of weight. (There, Apatt, I've squeezed in a TARDIS.)
"Each time is true, but the truths are not the same."
WHO IS THIS FOR?
It's for anyone who likes to play with ideas and appreciates beautiful writing. I know real physicists who have enjoyed this, but you certainly don't need any esoteric knowledge to be transported by it.
POETIC PROSE
I appreciated the lyricism as I read it, but mainly noted down the ideas.
* There are many series of single-sentence, seemingly unrelated, vignettes, especially on page 58-60: "Footprints in snow on a winter island. A boat on the water at night, its lights dim in the distance... A locked cabinet of pills. A leaf on the ground in autumn, red and gold and brown, delicate... A mother on her bed, weeping, the smell of basil in the air... Sunlight, in long angles through the window in late afternoon... A worn book lying on a table beside a dim lamp."
* Sunrise: "Ten minutes past six by the invisible clock on the wall. Minute by minute, new objects gain form."
* "Hypothetically, time might be smooth or rough, prickly or silky, hard or soft. But in this world, the texture of time happens to be sticky."
* "In a world where time is a sense... a sequence of episodes may be quick or may be slow, dim or intense, salty or sweet, causal or without cause, orderly or random." Here, "the time-deaf are unable to speak what they know. For speech needs a sequence of words, spoken in time."
* "Where time stands still... Raindrops hang motionless in the air. Pendulums... float mid-swing. Dogs raise the muzzles in silent howls... The aromas of dates, mangoes, coriander, cumin are suspended in space."
* Time can be measured by things other than clocks: "by the changes in heavenly bodies... by heartbeats... the duration of loneliness."
HOW TO BE HAPPY
This is a book of hypotheses, not solutions. It isn't theological or prescriptive, but its exposition of adaptation and happiness spoke to me.
In most of the worlds, some people have coping strategies that bring happiness, or at least contentment, whereas others are mired in misery. In many cases, that means going to great, even ridiculous, lengths to gain just a little bit more time. In those respects, these worlds are like our own.
In some of the worlds, predestination or inevitability breeds recklessness, "free to do as he pleases, free in a world without freedom."
In another, it's suggested that "a world where time is absolute is a world of consolation" because time is predictable. I'm not sure about that one; people are still unpredictable. Lightman is also very upbeat about a world where people have no memories: every night is the first night, and people live in the present - but they could just as easily be reckless, not being able to learn from experience.
Should we live for the moment, the past, or the future (echoes of A Christmas Carol?)? Would you "rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen, like a butterfly, mounted in a case"?
There is no single answer, but I believe we are responsible creating the framework for our own happiness. We may need help (especially if saddled with depression or grim circumstances), but ultimately, peace can only come from within. How one achieves that is trickier - rather like the solution for travelling safely through a black hole that starts, "First, build a time machine..." (or maybe the way to build a time machine is to first find the black hole?).
WEIRD WAYS TIME COULD WORK - Spoilerish?
Some examples of worlds described in the book. For each, the implications of understanding and ignorance of the nature of time is different, and almost all could be the basis for a whole novel:
* "Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly."
* "Time is like a flow of water, occasionally displaced by a bit of debris, a passing breeze.... People caught in the branching tributaries find themselves suddenly carried to the past."
* A stop/start world where time is "seemingly continuous from a distance but disjointed close up."
* "Time has three dimensions, like space... an object may participate in three perpendicular futures."
* "Time is like the light between two mirrors... a world of countless copies."
* "There is mechanical time and there is body time." One is "rigid and metallic", the other "squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay... Where the two times meet, desperation. Where the two times go their separate ways, contentment."
* "Time flows more slowly the farther from the centre of the earth." Or the converse: "The centre of time" from which "time travels outward in concentric circles", getting faster as one is further away. Where time is a local phenomenon, passing at a different rate, each town has to become a self-sufficient island, and no traveller can ever return home, being "cut off in time, as well as space".
* "Time is visible in all places. A vast scaffold of time, stretching across the universe." And "Time is a visible dimension... one may choose his motion along the axis of time." Which way would you go?
* "Consider a world in which cause and effect are erratic... each act is an island in time." Scientists are helpless, but artists love it.
* "A world without a future... Time is a line that terminates at the present, both in reality and in the mind."
* What about a world where everyone knows it will end in a month? Lightman sees it "a world of equality", but I think that's optimistic. Or where people are like mayflies and live for only a day each.
* What about a world where people live forever? Does infinite time and infinite possibility send you to a frenzy of business, experiencing everything you can imagine, or does it take the pressure off, so you sit around, doing nothing just yet?
* "The passage of time brings increasing order." In spring, people create mess and chaos.
* "Imagine a world in which there is no time. Only images." I can't really get my head round that one, but it's the most beautiful one.
* "Time is not a quantity but a quality... Time exists, but it cannot be measured... Events are triggered by other events, not by time."
* "Time flows not evenly, but fitfully and... as a consequence, people receive fitful glimpses of the future." (Shades of Flashforward.) Here, "Those who have seen the future do not need to take risks, and those who have not yet seen the future wait for their vision without taking risks."
* "Time passes more slowly for people in motion." The converse would have possibilities too.
* There's a backward-flowing time, but Kurt Vonnegut, Martin Amis (and others) have done that in and Time's Arrow respectively.
Perhaps we should try to ignore time. One world has only just discovered objective measurement of it. The clock "was magical... unbearable... outside natural law" but it could not be ignored, so they worshipped it. "They have been trapped by their own inventiveness and audacity. And they must pay with their lives."
TINY FLAW
The alternative time chapters are interspersed with occasional ones describing Einstein as a young patent clerk, working on this theories of time. I found these an unnecessary and unwelcome distraction.
HOW TO READ IT
You could easily sit and read this book in one short session, but although you would imbibe the beauty and the tangling of time, I wanted to digest and ponder a few worlds at a... time. I might choose differently on a reread, though.
TO MY FRIENDS - yes, you!
This is another wonderful book that I discovered purely because of the enticing reviews of several friends on GR. Thank you.
To my other friends, I redirect the favour by recommending this book to you.
UPDATE re Calvino
A few months after loving this, I read and loved Calvino's Invisible Cities. I now realise how heavily influenced Lightman was: in content, structure, style鈥� every way. Whether you class it as homage or borderline plagiarism is debatable, but it does not detract from my enjoyment of this at the time, and I think Lightman鈥檚 book is probably the more accessible of the two, even though it is primarily about physics/time, rather than geography.
The quotidian becomes extraordinary and unsettling.
Time travel needn't involve machines or blue boxes (sorry, Apatt!): Lightman makes it leap off the page and into your mind, leaving you questioning the very root of reality.
Now that I am reading Borges, I assume Lightman was influenced by him (and maybe others), in particular, the short story, Tl枚n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
FORMAT
There are about 30 very short chapters (typically, three pages of well-spaced text). Each uses an artist's palette to conjure ordinary scenes of human interaction in a small Swiss Germanic town.
Everyman, everyday, anytown - except that the unique way time operates in each place creates a uniquely alien culture.
It's full of dilemmas and paradoxes, and the book itself is a paradox: it's so little and light, but it contains SO much of weight. (There, Apatt, I've squeezed in a TARDIS.)
"Each time is true, but the truths are not the same."
WHO IS THIS FOR?
It's for anyone who likes to play with ideas and appreciates beautiful writing. I know real physicists who have enjoyed this, but you certainly don't need any esoteric knowledge to be transported by it.
POETIC PROSE
I appreciated the lyricism as I read it, but mainly noted down the ideas.
* There are many series of single-sentence, seemingly unrelated, vignettes, especially on page 58-60: "Footprints in snow on a winter island. A boat on the water at night, its lights dim in the distance... A locked cabinet of pills. A leaf on the ground in autumn, red and gold and brown, delicate... A mother on her bed, weeping, the smell of basil in the air... Sunlight, in long angles through the window in late afternoon... A worn book lying on a table beside a dim lamp."
* Sunrise: "Ten minutes past six by the invisible clock on the wall. Minute by minute, new objects gain form."
* "Hypothetically, time might be smooth or rough, prickly or silky, hard or soft. But in this world, the texture of time happens to be sticky."
* "In a world where time is a sense... a sequence of episodes may be quick or may be slow, dim or intense, salty or sweet, causal or without cause, orderly or random." Here, "the time-deaf are unable to speak what they know. For speech needs a sequence of words, spoken in time."
* "Where time stands still... Raindrops hang motionless in the air. Pendulums... float mid-swing. Dogs raise the muzzles in silent howls... The aromas of dates, mangoes, coriander, cumin are suspended in space."
* Time can be measured by things other than clocks: "by the changes in heavenly bodies... by heartbeats... the duration of loneliness."
HOW TO BE HAPPY
This is a book of hypotheses, not solutions. It isn't theological or prescriptive, but its exposition of adaptation and happiness spoke to me.
In most of the worlds, some people have coping strategies that bring happiness, or at least contentment, whereas others are mired in misery. In many cases, that means going to great, even ridiculous, lengths to gain just a little bit more time. In those respects, these worlds are like our own.
In some of the worlds, predestination or inevitability breeds recklessness, "free to do as he pleases, free in a world without freedom."
In another, it's suggested that "a world where time is absolute is a world of consolation" because time is predictable. I'm not sure about that one; people are still unpredictable. Lightman is also very upbeat about a world where people have no memories: every night is the first night, and people live in the present - but they could just as easily be reckless, not being able to learn from experience.
Should we live for the moment, the past, or the future (echoes of A Christmas Carol?)? Would you "rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen, like a butterfly, mounted in a case"?
There is no single answer, but I believe we are responsible creating the framework for our own happiness. We may need help (especially if saddled with depression or grim circumstances), but ultimately, peace can only come from within. How one achieves that is trickier - rather like the solution for travelling safely through a black hole that starts, "First, build a time machine..." (or maybe the way to build a time machine is to first find the black hole?).
WEIRD WAYS TIME COULD WORK - Spoilerish?
Some examples of worlds described in the book. For each, the implications of understanding and ignorance of the nature of time is different, and almost all could be the basis for a whole novel:
* "Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly."
* "Time is like a flow of water, occasionally displaced by a bit of debris, a passing breeze.... People caught in the branching tributaries find themselves suddenly carried to the past."
* A stop/start world where time is "seemingly continuous from a distance but disjointed close up."
* "Time has three dimensions, like space... an object may participate in three perpendicular futures."
* "Time is like the light between two mirrors... a world of countless copies."
* "There is mechanical time and there is body time." One is "rigid and metallic", the other "squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay... Where the two times meet, desperation. Where the two times go their separate ways, contentment."
* "Time flows more slowly the farther from the centre of the earth." Or the converse: "The centre of time" from which "time travels outward in concentric circles", getting faster as one is further away. Where time is a local phenomenon, passing at a different rate, each town has to become a self-sufficient island, and no traveller can ever return home, being "cut off in time, as well as space".
* "Time is visible in all places. A vast scaffold of time, stretching across the universe." And "Time is a visible dimension... one may choose his motion along the axis of time." Which way would you go?
* "Consider a world in which cause and effect are erratic... each act is an island in time." Scientists are helpless, but artists love it.
* "A world without a future... Time is a line that terminates at the present, both in reality and in the mind."
* What about a world where everyone knows it will end in a month? Lightman sees it "a world of equality", but I think that's optimistic. Or where people are like mayflies and live for only a day each.
* What about a world where people live forever? Does infinite time and infinite possibility send you to a frenzy of business, experiencing everything you can imagine, or does it take the pressure off, so you sit around, doing nothing just yet?
* "The passage of time brings increasing order." In spring, people create mess and chaos.
* "Imagine a world in which there is no time. Only images." I can't really get my head round that one, but it's the most beautiful one.
* "Time is not a quantity but a quality... Time exists, but it cannot be measured... Events are triggered by other events, not by time."
* "Time flows not evenly, but fitfully and... as a consequence, people receive fitful glimpses of the future." (Shades of Flashforward.) Here, "Those who have seen the future do not need to take risks, and those who have not yet seen the future wait for their vision without taking risks."
* "Time passes more slowly for people in motion." The converse would have possibilities too.
* There's a backward-flowing time, but Kurt Vonnegut, Martin Amis (and others) have done that in and Time's Arrow respectively.
Perhaps we should try to ignore time. One world has only just discovered objective measurement of it. The clock "was magical... unbearable... outside natural law" but it could not be ignored, so they worshipped it. "They have been trapped by their own inventiveness and audacity. And they must pay with their lives."
TINY FLAW
The alternative time chapters are interspersed with occasional ones describing Einstein as a young patent clerk, working on this theories of time. I found these an unnecessary and unwelcome distraction.
HOW TO READ IT
You could easily sit and read this book in one short session, but although you would imbibe the beauty and the tangling of time, I wanted to digest and ponder a few worlds at a... time. I might choose differently on a reread, though.
TO MY FRIENDS - yes, you!
This is another wonderful book that I discovered purely because of the enticing reviews of several friends on GR. Thank you.
To my other friends, I redirect the favour by recommending this book to you.
UPDATE re Calvino
A few months after loving this, I read and loved Calvino's Invisible Cities. I now realise how heavily influenced Lightman was: in content, structure, style鈥� every way. Whether you class it as homage or borderline plagiarism is debatable, but it does not detract from my enjoyment of this at the time, and I think Lightman鈥檚 book is probably the more accessible of the two, even though it is primarily about physics/time, rather than geography.
January 21, 2021
The Value of Time
Time is the skeleton in the intellectual closet, the elephant in the scientific room, and the rogue gene of rationality. Time presents a series of paradoxes which Lightman presents as if they were dreams to be analysed - not to be resolved but merely to be appreciated. Perhaps that鈥檚 the limit of human capability, that is, merely to appreciate time as something unknowable. If so, then the purpose of time may well be to keep human beings humble, an unexpected consequence of eating from the tree of knowledge.
Time, of course, is an essential concept not just for the conduct of everyday life and the purported rationality of scientific thought, but also as a foundation for ethics, and for one鈥檚 fundamental feeling about the world and our place in it. So how we think about time, however unconsciously, matters. We wouldn鈥檛 be able to communicate without time since words come in a sequence. Yet single-celled animals appear to communicate and have no detectable sense of time. Time has been considered as a threat or a consolation; as objective or entirely subjective; as universal or merely local; as a fact of existence or a fantasy created by human beings to make our lives bearable; as something which gives or destroys meaning.
But no matter what view one takes on time, its paradoxes prevail. Lightman catalogues them in his witty vignettes of life in Berne. If time is circular, there can be no choice, no free will. If time-travel is possible, choice and free will could destroy the world. If there are dimensions in time as there are in space, then there could be an infinity of simultaneous worlds. If time is reversible, the relation between cause and effect is merely conventional, etc., etc. It seems that no matter where one turns philosophically, someone has already opened a door to understanding and someone else has closed the same door with a decisive bang.
Without time, there would be no regrets, no sense of loss. But there probably wouldn鈥檛 be anything like love either, certainly not anticipation or longing. Commitments and contracts would be meaningless. History, indeed memory of any kind except for the most unconsciously instinctive (including the false or distorted kind), could not exist. Greed would be eliminated; so would ambition. Neither progress nor deterioration would be noticeable. But entropy would be stopped in its tracks; so everything would be much tidier. Age would be a mythical fantasy. Ethics as a consideration of the consequences of one鈥檚 actions would be senseless. On the other hand, an ethical ideal of equality might well be a consequence of the absence of time. Does time even exist in a galactic black hole?
So Lightman is pretty comprehensive. But I think there is at least one theory of time, or Einsteinian dream, which he may have neglected: Time as metric of value. That time is a metric, a scale on which we measure and evaluate, is something fairly certain. Such a metric is neither subjective nor objective but inter-subjective and communal, quite a bit like language really. So it is something real but created by human beings for an evolutionary purpose, namely to be able to rank things - events, structures, traditions, words, and people - according to their importance. And, of course, this implies arguing about their importance. An agreement on something as the basis for disagreement, one might say.
How ironically fitting, therefore, that the nature of the thing agreed as a metric should be the subject of such intense disagreement and confusion. I am 72 years of age. I can prove it by both memory and birth certificate. But memory is uncertain, and documents can be forged. In any case, the literal meaning of my assertion is that I have experienced 72 Springtimes - a mere convention. Scientifically it means that the replicating tails of my bodily cells are running out of steam. Culturally, it means that I am either a carrier of wisdom or over the hill depending on whom you ask. Psychologically, that I am probably more filled with memories and suppressed memories than is good for me. All these are evaluations, judgments that require the metric of time.
As with all metrics of value, there is nothing beyond, under, or inside the metric of time. It stands on its own. It is its own substance. We place ourselves and everything else on that metric. The metric is not part of us or of anything else. Confusing the substance of the metric with something either 鈥榦ut there鈥� in the cosmos, or 鈥榠n here鈥� in one鈥檚 mind, is a mistake. Just as Zeno created his paradoxes of movement in space by confusing the metric with the world to which it is applied, so we create similar paradoxes with time. The apparent contradictions of quantum mechanics is just one example.
There are, of course, not one metric of time but any number of them depending on our perspective on the world - just as Einstein showed. These metrics are not simply contraries, they may even be contradictories - uniformly increasing as others decline. Comparing them implies a difference in purpose which completely explains the difference in scales. Many of these purposes are strange: to prove that God exists... or that he doesn鈥檛 exist; to prove that the universe expanded rapidly... or that it didn鈥檛. As if time itself doesn鈥檛 change with the intentions associated with it. Time is its own metric and nothing else, just like every other measure of value.
This theory of time as a metric of value may involve its own paradoxes. But it does have one signal advantage: by allowing purpose to determine what time is, the theory incorporates all of Lightman鈥檚 common-sense and philosophical conjectures, including Einstein鈥檚, and allows each its place. None are incorrect, although some may be better than others depending on intention. Responses on a postcard, please.
Time is the skeleton in the intellectual closet, the elephant in the scientific room, and the rogue gene of rationality. Time presents a series of paradoxes which Lightman presents as if they were dreams to be analysed - not to be resolved but merely to be appreciated. Perhaps that鈥檚 the limit of human capability, that is, merely to appreciate time as something unknowable. If so, then the purpose of time may well be to keep human beings humble, an unexpected consequence of eating from the tree of knowledge.
Time, of course, is an essential concept not just for the conduct of everyday life and the purported rationality of scientific thought, but also as a foundation for ethics, and for one鈥檚 fundamental feeling about the world and our place in it. So how we think about time, however unconsciously, matters. We wouldn鈥檛 be able to communicate without time since words come in a sequence. Yet single-celled animals appear to communicate and have no detectable sense of time. Time has been considered as a threat or a consolation; as objective or entirely subjective; as universal or merely local; as a fact of existence or a fantasy created by human beings to make our lives bearable; as something which gives or destroys meaning.
But no matter what view one takes on time, its paradoxes prevail. Lightman catalogues them in his witty vignettes of life in Berne. If time is circular, there can be no choice, no free will. If time-travel is possible, choice and free will could destroy the world. If there are dimensions in time as there are in space, then there could be an infinity of simultaneous worlds. If time is reversible, the relation between cause and effect is merely conventional, etc., etc. It seems that no matter where one turns philosophically, someone has already opened a door to understanding and someone else has closed the same door with a decisive bang.
Without time, there would be no regrets, no sense of loss. But there probably wouldn鈥檛 be anything like love either, certainly not anticipation or longing. Commitments and contracts would be meaningless. History, indeed memory of any kind except for the most unconsciously instinctive (including the false or distorted kind), could not exist. Greed would be eliminated; so would ambition. Neither progress nor deterioration would be noticeable. But entropy would be stopped in its tracks; so everything would be much tidier. Age would be a mythical fantasy. Ethics as a consideration of the consequences of one鈥檚 actions would be senseless. On the other hand, an ethical ideal of equality might well be a consequence of the absence of time. Does time even exist in a galactic black hole?
So Lightman is pretty comprehensive. But I think there is at least one theory of time, or Einsteinian dream, which he may have neglected: Time as metric of value. That time is a metric, a scale on which we measure and evaluate, is something fairly certain. Such a metric is neither subjective nor objective but inter-subjective and communal, quite a bit like language really. So it is something real but created by human beings for an evolutionary purpose, namely to be able to rank things - events, structures, traditions, words, and people - according to their importance. And, of course, this implies arguing about their importance. An agreement on something as the basis for disagreement, one might say.
How ironically fitting, therefore, that the nature of the thing agreed as a metric should be the subject of such intense disagreement and confusion. I am 72 years of age. I can prove it by both memory and birth certificate. But memory is uncertain, and documents can be forged. In any case, the literal meaning of my assertion is that I have experienced 72 Springtimes - a mere convention. Scientifically it means that the replicating tails of my bodily cells are running out of steam. Culturally, it means that I am either a carrier of wisdom or over the hill depending on whom you ask. Psychologically, that I am probably more filled with memories and suppressed memories than is good for me. All these are evaluations, judgments that require the metric of time.
As with all metrics of value, there is nothing beyond, under, or inside the metric of time. It stands on its own. It is its own substance. We place ourselves and everything else on that metric. The metric is not part of us or of anything else. Confusing the substance of the metric with something either 鈥榦ut there鈥� in the cosmos, or 鈥榠n here鈥� in one鈥檚 mind, is a mistake. Just as Zeno created his paradoxes of movement in space by confusing the metric with the world to which it is applied, so we create similar paradoxes with time. The apparent contradictions of quantum mechanics is just one example.
There are, of course, not one metric of time but any number of them depending on our perspective on the world - just as Einstein showed. These metrics are not simply contraries, they may even be contradictories - uniformly increasing as others decline. Comparing them implies a difference in purpose which completely explains the difference in scales. Many of these purposes are strange: to prove that God exists... or that he doesn鈥檛 exist; to prove that the universe expanded rapidly... or that it didn鈥檛. As if time itself doesn鈥檛 change with the intentions associated with it. Time is its own metric and nothing else, just like every other measure of value.
This theory of time as a metric of value may involve its own paradoxes. But it does have one signal advantage: by allowing purpose to determine what time is, the theory incorporates all of Lightman鈥檚 common-sense and philosophical conjectures, including Einstein鈥檚, and allows each its place. None are incorrect, although some may be better than others depending on intention. Responses on a postcard, please.
Read
April 22, 2025How do you check the time?
If you spend a lot of time on your computer, you may simply swivel your eyes to the top right-hand corner of the screen. Or perhaps you wear a wrist watch so all you have to do is move your head slightly to check the time. Maybe you rely on your phone and then you have to make more of an effort, you have to put your hand in your pocket, pull out the phone and switch it on. No? You carry your phone in your hand at all times? Then checking the time has never been easier.
In the spring of 1905, the people of Berne had to make a bigger effort to check the time. Those were the days when mobile phones didn鈥檛 exist and clocks were less reliable. You鈥檝e forgotten that, haven鈥檛 you? That clocks used to run at different speeds, that your clock might lose several minutes a day while your neighbour's was always fast, or vice-versa. And if you forgot to wind your clock, or mislaid the key, you lost track of the time completely, unless, of course, there was a friendly German clock-winder in the vicinity, but that鈥檚 another story which I won't waste time on right now.
Back to the people of Berne and the efforts they made to check the time. Berne has a famous clock tower dating back to the thirteenth century, the Zytgloggeturm (take your time, you'll be able to pronounce it eventually).
Every afternoon, the townspeople of Berne convene at the west end of Kramgasse. There, at four minutes to three, the Zytgloggeturm pays tribute to time. High on the turret of the tower clowns dance, roosters crow, bears play fife and drum, their mechanical movements and sounds synchronised exactly by the turning of gears, which, in turn, are inspired by the perfection of time. At three o鈥檆lock precisely, a massive bell chimes three times, people verify their watches and then return to their offices on Speichergasse, their shops on Marktgasse, their farms beyond the bridges of the Aare.
The bears mentioned in that quote don鈥檛 all appear every day. No, every bear has six days off so the townspeople always know which day of the week it is from the attributes of the bear which appears just before the clock strikes the hour; the Sunday bear is white, for example.
So the clock also served as a calendar and its giant face showed the position of the sun, the phases of the moon, the date and the seasons. Anyone living and working within sight of that clock had their very own giant app full of time related information available at the merest swivel of the eye. And there you were thinking those must have been such primitive times.
Far from it.
This book opens at six o鈥檆lock in the morning in an office on Speichergasse where a young man, who would later become the most famous man of his century, perhaps of all time, has just spent many hours putting the finishing touches to his new 'Theory of Time'. He has been working on the theory for months, and his dreams as well as his waking life have been preoccupied with examining all the possible variations of time that may exist and the relative consequences for the world and those who live in it.
The rest of the book recounts Alan Lightman鈥檚 version of those dreams: the people of Berne living their lives, working and sleeping but not necessarily in the world of time as we know it, so that a husband might be rich and successful in one time world, poor in another, a wife might be faithful when time runs rapidly on, unfaithful when it slows down.
Lightman鈥檚 language is simple, his ideas are accessible and by the time you finish this book, you will be convinced that you yourself actually lived in Berne in the spring of 1905, perhaps on Speichergasse, or maybe on Marktgasse or preferably along the leafy, sunny banks of the river Aare.
And now you are four minutes older than you were before you started reading this review.
And if you want to be another four minutes older but not necessarily unhappy about it, have a listen to this:
If you spend a lot of time on your computer, you may simply swivel your eyes to the top right-hand corner of the screen. Or perhaps you wear a wrist watch so all you have to do is move your head slightly to check the time. Maybe you rely on your phone and then you have to make more of an effort, you have to put your hand in your pocket, pull out the phone and switch it on. No? You carry your phone in your hand at all times? Then checking the time has never been easier.
In the spring of 1905, the people of Berne had to make a bigger effort to check the time. Those were the days when mobile phones didn鈥檛 exist and clocks were less reliable. You鈥檝e forgotten that, haven鈥檛 you? That clocks used to run at different speeds, that your clock might lose several minutes a day while your neighbour's was always fast, or vice-versa. And if you forgot to wind your clock, or mislaid the key, you lost track of the time completely, unless, of course, there was a friendly German clock-winder in the vicinity, but that鈥檚 another story which I won't waste time on right now.
Back to the people of Berne and the efforts they made to check the time. Berne has a famous clock tower dating back to the thirteenth century, the Zytgloggeturm (take your time, you'll be able to pronounce it eventually).
Every afternoon, the townspeople of Berne convene at the west end of Kramgasse. There, at four minutes to three, the Zytgloggeturm pays tribute to time. High on the turret of the tower clowns dance, roosters crow, bears play fife and drum, their mechanical movements and sounds synchronised exactly by the turning of gears, which, in turn, are inspired by the perfection of time. At three o鈥檆lock precisely, a massive bell chimes three times, people verify their watches and then return to their offices on Speichergasse, their shops on Marktgasse, their farms beyond the bridges of the Aare.
The bears mentioned in that quote don鈥檛 all appear every day. No, every bear has six days off so the townspeople always know which day of the week it is from the attributes of the bear which appears just before the clock strikes the hour; the Sunday bear is white, for example.
So the clock also served as a calendar and its giant face showed the position of the sun, the phases of the moon, the date and the seasons. Anyone living and working within sight of that clock had their very own giant app full of time related information available at the merest swivel of the eye. And there you were thinking those must have been such primitive times.
Far from it.
This book opens at six o鈥檆lock in the morning in an office on Speichergasse where a young man, who would later become the most famous man of his century, perhaps of all time, has just spent many hours putting the finishing touches to his new 'Theory of Time'. He has been working on the theory for months, and his dreams as well as his waking life have been preoccupied with examining all the possible variations of time that may exist and the relative consequences for the world and those who live in it.
The rest of the book recounts Alan Lightman鈥檚 version of those dreams: the people of Berne living their lives, working and sleeping but not necessarily in the world of time as we know it, so that a husband might be rich and successful in one time world, poor in another, a wife might be faithful when time runs rapidly on, unfaithful when it slows down.
Lightman鈥檚 language is simple, his ideas are accessible and by the time you finish this book, you will be convinced that you yourself actually lived in Berne in the spring of 1905, perhaps on Speichergasse, or maybe on Marktgasse or preferably along the leafy, sunny banks of the river Aare.
And now you are four minutes older than you were before you started reading this review.
And if you want to be another four minutes older but not necessarily unhappy about it, have a listen to this:
October 15, 2018
I had an awful Physics teacher at University, but one thing he was good at was getting the class to understand Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which has always fascinated me.
This book was brilliant. Imagine a world where time is a circle.Or a world where cause and effect are erratic. Or a world where time is not continuous. These are a few of the worlds Einstein dreams up while he's working on his Theory. Time is definitely a central theme in this book and few will be able to look at time (or life) in the same way after reading this book.
I was impressed by how creatively Lightman used the different concepts of time in his little vignettes. This book has compelled me to look for fiction written by scientists. A very unique,intelligent and philosophical read.
This book was brilliant. Imagine a world where time is a circle.Or a world where cause and effect are erratic. Or a world where time is not continuous. These are a few of the worlds Einstein dreams up while he's working on his Theory. Time is definitely a central theme in this book and few will be able to look at time (or life) in the same way after reading this book.
I was impressed by how creatively Lightman used the different concepts of time in his little vignettes. This book has compelled me to look for fiction written by scientists. A very unique,intelligent and philosophical read.
November 24, 2016
Time has always fascinated me. Well, I say always, but that's not true. In fact, I'm almost never fascinated by time. Only very occasionally, in short bouts, whenever I happen to think about it. If I'd have to add up all the time during which I was fascinated by time, I don't think it would add up to much more than a week, if that. And yet, during my fascination with time, it feels like an endless, enduring fascination that I always carry around with me, and that I've been subconsciously pondering on ever since I was capable of doing such a grave thing as pondering. Given this wonderment with time, I was ready to love this book, a book that would make me think about time and forget about time all at once.
Sadly, it was not to be.
With every page I turned, time, much like the words I was wading through, became a sticky jello. Everything started moving slowly. My thoughts, the story, the people under yet another arcade in yet another Graschengasse or some other German sounding street that looks like any other German street that apparently always needs to have arcades. And I'm not talking about the cool arcades with games and pool tables and candy, but the old architectural thing with which there's only one thing to do: stand under it and do absolutely nothing of interest.
The only thing that happens in this book is time. It happens in different ways, as it happens, but while time is a great host for happenings, it doesn't make for a very great entertainer itself. As my slow thoughts slowly built up to slow frustration I finished another three page chapter, which should actually be called a vignette, because stuff actually happens in chapters. These vignettes are intellectual and poetic masterpieces that are boring beyond the imagination, which is the least boring way to be boring, so I'll give them that.
No, time did not disappear. It did not become a concept that in turn became a gateway to leaps and bounds of the imagination. Time became the annoying tick-tack-tocking of the clock while you're trying to sleep. Every tick signifying another segment of time irrevocably wasted on lying awake without good reason, trying to read this book.
I'm being harsh. I'm maybe even being a bit evil. Definitely rude. So let me have a little pause right here and calm down. So I just took a little pause, not that you noticed because you just kept reading, but I assure you I did. You can't begin to imagine how much time passed between that dot and that "So.". The stuff I did. The laundry. The dishes. A walk in the drizzle. Thinking about Fionnuala's sublime review that shows what a greater mind than mine can give in terms of interpretation of this book. Her review also comes with a great soundtrack. So yes, it was a good pause, I even had a cookie. The American kind, with little bits of chocolate, that fall apart in big crumbles that you can find on your clothes later on for a little treat after the treat. And you? What did you do with that pause? Absolutely nothing! You just rushed to the end of this paragraph, perhaps just to end up feeling hungry for a cookie, perhaps even willing to settle for a crumble.
Maybe I should point out that those German sounding streets aren't German, but Swiss. Imagine that, a book about time set in Switzerland! It's also about Einstein. What's his nationality, I ask? Who knows, I sure don't, that's why I asked? The guy lived absolutely everywhere, relatively speaking. Time for another pause. Wikipedia just told me he's a W眉rttemberger, whatever the hell that means. Guy is so old he was born in a country that doesn't even exist anymore. Makes you wonder if he's even real, right?
But he was! And I guess that means that he is. And he dreamed dreams. And who decided to commit these dreams to paper? Alan Lightman. His name? Not a coincidence, I would think. Unless everything is a coincidence, because every incident links with another incident somehow, every effect knows a cause that's also an effect and you get these long strings of effects and causes and they get all entangled like your headphones do and one of these strings, perhaps through some inextricable knots, must connect Lightman's name to Einstein's dreams. The result, namely this book, is as frustrating as the spaghettis coming out of your pocket whenever you want to listen to some tunes during a walk in the drizzle.
Should you read this book? Only if you want to make up your own mind. Read Fionnuala's review to get another side of the story, a more beautiful one, before making up that cluttered mind of yours. Unless you're Fionnuala. Scratch that, even if you're Fionnuala, because you deserve a little treat of your own making after all this rambling.
My two cents? Maybe just read the first line and the last line of every vignette. They usually get the point across and it will save you the trouble of reading about how a couple is standing under an arcade or how a butcher is passing an arcade or how that Aarhe (aargh indeed) is twinkling under the sun or the moon or, wait for it, twinkling in time. You didn't wait for it, did you? Okay, that's the end of this review for you, young reader! What I'm trying to say is that some ideas on how time could work are interesting enough, which are described in the beginning of each vignette. Then flick two pages while thinking for yourself what it could mean, and then read the last couple of sentences to (sometimes) get a nice paradox on the way we deal with our past, or how time can make us alone, or how an absolute lack of freedom provides its own form of freedom.
I think a lot more could have been done with both time, this author's time and my time. Nothing can be done without time, ergo everything should be done WITH it. Lightman didn't do enough and failed to live up to his promising name.
Of course, that's just my opinion. As you very well know by now, it's all relative.
Sadly, it was not to be.
With every page I turned, time, much like the words I was wading through, became a sticky jello. Everything started moving slowly. My thoughts, the story, the people under yet another arcade in yet another Graschengasse or some other German sounding street that looks like any other German street that apparently always needs to have arcades. And I'm not talking about the cool arcades with games and pool tables and candy, but the old architectural thing with which there's only one thing to do: stand under it and do absolutely nothing of interest.
The only thing that happens in this book is time. It happens in different ways, as it happens, but while time is a great host for happenings, it doesn't make for a very great entertainer itself. As my slow thoughts slowly built up to slow frustration I finished another three page chapter, which should actually be called a vignette, because stuff actually happens in chapters. These vignettes are intellectual and poetic masterpieces that are boring beyond the imagination, which is the least boring way to be boring, so I'll give them that.
No, time did not disappear. It did not become a concept that in turn became a gateway to leaps and bounds of the imagination. Time became the annoying tick-tack-tocking of the clock while you're trying to sleep. Every tick signifying another segment of time irrevocably wasted on lying awake without good reason, trying to read this book.
I'm being harsh. I'm maybe even being a bit evil. Definitely rude. So let me have a little pause right here and calm down. So I just took a little pause, not that you noticed because you just kept reading, but I assure you I did. You can't begin to imagine how much time passed between that dot and that "So.". The stuff I did. The laundry. The dishes. A walk in the drizzle. Thinking about Fionnuala's sublime review that shows what a greater mind than mine can give in terms of interpretation of this book. Her review also comes with a great soundtrack. So yes, it was a good pause, I even had a cookie. The American kind, with little bits of chocolate, that fall apart in big crumbles that you can find on your clothes later on for a little treat after the treat. And you? What did you do with that pause? Absolutely nothing! You just rushed to the end of this paragraph, perhaps just to end up feeling hungry for a cookie, perhaps even willing to settle for a crumble.
Maybe I should point out that those German sounding streets aren't German, but Swiss. Imagine that, a book about time set in Switzerland! It's also about Einstein. What's his nationality, I ask? Who knows, I sure don't, that's why I asked? The guy lived absolutely everywhere, relatively speaking. Time for another pause. Wikipedia just told me he's a W眉rttemberger, whatever the hell that means. Guy is so old he was born in a country that doesn't even exist anymore. Makes you wonder if he's even real, right?
But he was! And I guess that means that he is. And he dreamed dreams. And who decided to commit these dreams to paper? Alan Lightman. His name? Not a coincidence, I would think. Unless everything is a coincidence, because every incident links with another incident somehow, every effect knows a cause that's also an effect and you get these long strings of effects and causes and they get all entangled like your headphones do and one of these strings, perhaps through some inextricable knots, must connect Lightman's name to Einstein's dreams. The result, namely this book, is as frustrating as the spaghettis coming out of your pocket whenever you want to listen to some tunes during a walk in the drizzle.
Should you read this book? Only if you want to make up your own mind. Read Fionnuala's review to get another side of the story, a more beautiful one, before making up that cluttered mind of yours. Unless you're Fionnuala. Scratch that, even if you're Fionnuala, because you deserve a little treat of your own making after all this rambling.
My two cents? Maybe just read the first line and the last line of every vignette. They usually get the point across and it will save you the trouble of reading about how a couple is standing under an arcade or how a butcher is passing an arcade or how that Aarhe (aargh indeed) is twinkling under the sun or the moon or, wait for it, twinkling in time. You didn't wait for it, did you? Okay, that's the end of this review for you, young reader! What I'm trying to say is that some ideas on how time could work are interesting enough, which are described in the beginning of each vignette. Then flick two pages while thinking for yourself what it could mean, and then read the last couple of sentences to (sometimes) get a nice paradox on the way we deal with our past, or how time can make us alone, or how an absolute lack of freedom provides its own form of freedom.
I think a lot more could have been done with both time, this author's time and my time. Nothing can be done without time, ergo everything should be done WITH it. Lightman didn't do enough and failed to live up to his promising name.
Of course, that's just my opinion. As you very well know by now, it's all relative.
February 18, 2021
Consisting of two- and three-page bits that represent Einstein's dreams about time when he's still a clerk in a patent office, when he's just finished sending off the theory of relativity, in "Einstein's Dreams" Lightman writes beautiful prose. Same place, same people, same landmarks and balconies and lovers, each one with a different twist. Some are more creative than others but it's the writing that made the book for me.
"At some time in the past, scientists discovered that time flows more slowly the farther from the center of earth. The effect is minuscule, but it can be measured with extremely sensitive instruments. Once the phenomenon was known, a few people, anxious to stay young, moved to the mountains. Now all houses are built on Dom, the Matterhorn, Monte Rosa, and other high ground. It is impossible to sell living quarters elsewhere.
"Many are not content simply to locate their homes on a mountain. To get the maximum effect, they have constructed their houses on stilts. The mountaintops all over the world are nested with such houses, which from a distance look like a flock of fat birds squatting on long skinny legs. People most eager to live longest have built their houses on the highest stilts. Indeed, some houses rise half a mile high on their spindly wooden legs."
and
"In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time. The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along."
It's, naturally, Proustian. I loved reading most of it because most of it is entrancing. I could have done without details of Einstein's unhappy marriage; perhaps this went over my head because it added nothing that I could discern.
Something I loved but can't verify: Lightman writes that Einstein sometimes sent patents he rejected back to the applicants with instructions on how to make their inventions work. Maybe it didn't happen or maybe he was bored or maybe the thoughts never stopped churning (churning beautifully in his invented dreams) no matter; I hope it's true. It's a sentimental book, and so that touched me.
"Consider a world in which cause and effect are erratic. Sometimes the first precedes the second, sometimes the second the first. Or perhaps cause lies forever in the past while effect in the future, but future and past are entwined.
"Most people have learned how to live in the moment. The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past. And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence. Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. Families comfort a dying uncle not because of a likely inheritance, but because he is loved at that moment.
"It is a world of sincerity."
"At some time in the past, scientists discovered that time flows more slowly the farther from the center of earth. The effect is minuscule, but it can be measured with extremely sensitive instruments. Once the phenomenon was known, a few people, anxious to stay young, moved to the mountains. Now all houses are built on Dom, the Matterhorn, Monte Rosa, and other high ground. It is impossible to sell living quarters elsewhere.
"Many are not content simply to locate their homes on a mountain. To get the maximum effect, they have constructed their houses on stilts. The mountaintops all over the world are nested with such houses, which from a distance look like a flock of fat birds squatting on long skinny legs. People most eager to live longest have built their houses on the highest stilts. Indeed, some houses rise half a mile high on their spindly wooden legs."
and
"In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time. The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along."
It's, naturally, Proustian. I loved reading most of it because most of it is entrancing. I could have done without details of Einstein's unhappy marriage; perhaps this went over my head because it added nothing that I could discern.
Something I loved but can't verify: Lightman writes that Einstein sometimes sent patents he rejected back to the applicants with instructions on how to make their inventions work. Maybe it didn't happen or maybe he was bored or maybe the thoughts never stopped churning (churning beautifully in his invented dreams) no matter; I hope it's true. It's a sentimental book, and so that touched me.
"Consider a world in which cause and effect are erratic. Sometimes the first precedes the second, sometimes the second the first. Or perhaps cause lies forever in the past while effect in the future, but future and past are entwined.
"Most people have learned how to live in the moment. The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past. And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence. Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. Families comfort a dying uncle not because of a likely inheritance, but because he is loved at that moment.
"It is a world of sincerity."
February 12, 2015
In this world, a scientific theory is a game. Scientific gamers spend their lives investigating new strategies, tactics, opening variations. Most gamers work on established games - chess, whist, electromagnetism - but every now and then someone invents a new game.
The Institut f眉r Spielforschung on Hochschulstrasse in Bern is in the middle of hosting an international games conference. Gamers have come from a dozen countries to present the results of their latest researches. In the main auditorium, Professor Lasker is reading a paper entitled "Some Remarks on the Queen's Gambit Declined". Further down the hall, the Symposium on Squeezes and Endplays is being attended by some of the world's foremost card theorists.
In a small room down in the basement, a junior patent clerk and amateur games enthusiast is explaining the game he has recently invented. Only a dozen people have turned up. When he has finished, there are some hostile questions: one person goes as far as asking whether the rules even make sense. During the interval, he asks the patent clerk if they could try a practice session. The clerk takes out a board and sets up the pieces.
They play four moves, and the clerk suddenly announces checkmate. "I don't understand!" says the skeptic ironically. But, a moment later, he finds to his surprise that he does. The clerk's game is more interesting than he had first realized.
___________________________________
In this world, a scientific theory is a painting. There is a long tradition of scientific art, which has created a rich and fertile vocabulary of visual metaphors.
Scientific artists belong to many different competing schools. Some of the more accessible pictures look like religious icons, filled with angels and gold leaf. Even laymen who understand nothing about science can look at them and feel momentarily comforted and uplifted. More knowledgeable people, who see them displayed in churches and museums, like to show off their learning and explain to their less well-informed friends what each halo and wing is meant to signify. This information is also imparted by school teachers to their students, who need to remember it in order to pass their yearly tests.
Other works of scientific art are less obvious in meaning. They consist of abstract forms, smudges of color, objects apparently flung together without any purpose or unifying theme. Most modern compositions belong to this family. Opinion is divided as to their worth. Some people say that they embody the very essence of science, others that they are a simple fraud.
The Kunstmuseum has a display of these avante-garde pieces. A young couple are standing in front of one of the less prominent canvases, which contains a few colored shapes arranged in a symmetrical pattern. The boy finds nothing to hold his attention, but the girl stops and looks at it carefully from several different angles.
"I have never seen anything like it before," she murmurs, and takes her glasses out of her handbag.
"So what's special about it?" asks her lover. He is disappointed that she is now going to wear her glasses; he thinks they make her less desirable.
She does not answer, but continues to study the painting.
___________________________________
In this world, a scientific theory is a series of dreams...
The Institut f眉r Spielforschung on Hochschulstrasse in Bern is in the middle of hosting an international games conference. Gamers have come from a dozen countries to present the results of their latest researches. In the main auditorium, Professor Lasker is reading a paper entitled "Some Remarks on the Queen's Gambit Declined". Further down the hall, the Symposium on Squeezes and Endplays is being attended by some of the world's foremost card theorists.
In a small room down in the basement, a junior patent clerk and amateur games enthusiast is explaining the game he has recently invented. Only a dozen people have turned up. When he has finished, there are some hostile questions: one person goes as far as asking whether the rules even make sense. During the interval, he asks the patent clerk if they could try a practice session. The clerk takes out a board and sets up the pieces.
They play four moves, and the clerk suddenly announces checkmate. "I don't understand!" says the skeptic ironically. But, a moment later, he finds to his surprise that he does. The clerk's game is more interesting than he had first realized.
___________________________________
In this world, a scientific theory is a painting. There is a long tradition of scientific art, which has created a rich and fertile vocabulary of visual metaphors.
Scientific artists belong to many different competing schools. Some of the more accessible pictures look like religious icons, filled with angels and gold leaf. Even laymen who understand nothing about science can look at them and feel momentarily comforted and uplifted. More knowledgeable people, who see them displayed in churches and museums, like to show off their learning and explain to their less well-informed friends what each halo and wing is meant to signify. This information is also imparted by school teachers to their students, who need to remember it in order to pass their yearly tests.
Other works of scientific art are less obvious in meaning. They consist of abstract forms, smudges of color, objects apparently flung together without any purpose or unifying theme. Most modern compositions belong to this family. Opinion is divided as to their worth. Some people say that they embody the very essence of science, others that they are a simple fraud.
The Kunstmuseum has a display of these avante-garde pieces. A young couple are standing in front of one of the less prominent canvases, which contains a few colored shapes arranged in a symmetrical pattern. The boy finds nothing to hold his attention, but the girl stops and looks at it carefully from several different angles.
"I have never seen anything like it before," she murmurs, and takes her glasses out of her handbag.
"So what's special about it?" asks her lover. He is disappointed that she is now going to wear her glasses; he thinks they make her less desirable.
She does not answer, but continues to study the painting.
___________________________________
In this world, a scientific theory is a series of dreams...
February 17, 2017
One cannot walk down an avenue, converse with a friend, enter a building, browse beneath the sandstone arches of an old arcade without meeting an instrument of time. Time is visible in all places. Clock towers, wristwatches, church bells divide years into months, months into days, days into hours, hours into seconds, each increment of time marching after the other in perfect succession. And beyond any particular clock, a vast scaffold of time, stretching across the universe, lays down the law of time equally for all. In this world, a second is a second is a second. Time paces forward with exquisite regularity, at precisely the same velocity in every corner of space. Time is an infinite ruler. Time is absolute.
Or is it? A mechanical engineer like me is concerned with questions like "Why" and "How" things work. A theoretical physicist like Lightman goes one step further and asks "WHAT IF ...?" And with this step he crosses the border between science and poetry, pushing the limits of our understanding, of our imagination far beyond the Newtonian, rigid, limited understanding of the natural world. Lightman does even more in his tribute to Einstein, in this glorious attempt to translate the theory of relativity into the everyday passions, concerns and aspirations of the people he meets on the streets of the city of Bern, finding beauty and freedom in the so-called cold equations of modern physics.
On this late afternoon, in these few moments while the sun is nestled in a snowy hollow of the Alps, a person could sit beside the lake and contemplate the texture of time. Hypothetically, time might be smooth or rough, prickly or silky, hard or soft. But in this world, the texture of time happens to be sticky. Portions of towns become stuck in some moment of history and do not get out. So, too, individual people become stuck in some point of their lives and do not get free.
WHAT IF time can speed up or slow down, stop like a stalled engine or skip seconds ahead like a child playing hopscotch? What if time moves backward instead of forward, or becomes transparent to the eye of the beholder, allowing glimpses of the future, or becoming opaque and limiting the experience to the present moment only? What if time moves faster as you go up in altitude, like the opposite of gravity? What if time moves in random waves like the clouds above the alps or along predestined paths like a tramway? How will this fickleness of time alter the lives of the people living in one of these alternate, parallel universes? Coming back to that world of stalled time:
The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that every one is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.
Lightman translates all these possibilities into the waking dreams of a genius physicist, weaving into the novel biographical notes and the sights, the history of Bern- the city where Einstein developed his theory of relativity. Wouldn't you rather read a book about the misadventures of time travellers than study differential equations? I wish my physics teacher had given me this novel as homework instead of that formula that covered half the blackboard in the classroom.
Depending on the speed, a person in a fast house could gain several minutes on his neighbors in a single day. This obsession with speed carries through the night, when valuable time could be lost, or gained, while asleep. At night, the streets are ablaze with lights, so that passing houses might avoid collisions, which are always fatal. At night people dream of speed, of youth, of opportunity.
Who can refute Lightman's arguments that time moves differently for different people? To some, it is a snail, a Sunday afternoon spent alone when the phone never rings and the night refuses to come. To others, there are not enough seconds in a day to do all the things they want to do, to meet all the people they love and to read all the books that deserve to be read...
What if time stretches unbroken into infinity and people live forever? "Strangely, the population of each city splits in two: the Latters and the Nows." The Laters are masters of procrastination: why do anything today, when you will have an infinite number of tommorows to start a job, a project, a life... "The Nows are constantly reading new books, studying new trades, new languages. In order to taste the infinities of life, they begin early and never go slowly. And who can question their logic? The Nows are easily spotted. They are the owners of cafes, the college professor, the doctors and nurses, the politicians, the people who rock their legs constantly whenever they sit down. They move through a succession of lives, eager to miss nothing.
And to some precious few, time is alive with possibilities and wonder, and they dream for us a new universe, a universe dancing to the secret music of celestial spheres:
In the middle of a room with books on tables, a young man stands and plays his violin. He makes gentle melody. And as he plays, he looks out to the street below, notices a couple close together, looks at them with deep brown eyes, and looks away. He stands so still. His music is the only movement, his music fills the room.
>><<>><<>><<>><<
Some readers might find the style of presentation familiar. I was struck by the similarities with Italo Calvino, especially with "Invisible Cities" and "Cosmicomiche" . When I reviewed the latter, I described it as what happens when you let a poet loose in a room full of physics manuals. Alan Lightman approaches the subject from the opposite side, a perfect mirror image of Calvino : a scientist who has the sensibility and the way with metaphor of a poet. Together, they arrive at a serendipitous midpoint where science becomes fun and adventurous, where numbers become living people breathing, running, loving, dreaming. Quick or slow, time stops for nobody, and in the final pages of his unique novel, Lightman echoes the wisdom of the ancients and invites us to seize the day and enjoy being alive:
In a world where time is a sense, like sight or like taste, a sequence of episodes may be quick or may be slow, dim or intense, salty or sweet, causal or without cause, orderly or random, depending on the prior history of the viewer. Philosophers sit in cafes on Amthausgasse and argue whether time really exists outside human perception. Who can say if an event happens fast or slow, casually or without cause, in the past or the future? Who can say if events happen at all? The philosophers sit with half-opened eyes and compare their aestethics of time.
also,
Indeed, each man and each woman desires a bird. Because this flock of nightingales is time. Time flutters and fidgets and hops with these birds. Trap one of these nightingales beneath a bell jar and time stops. The moment is frozen for all people and trees and soil caught within.
In truth, these birds are rarely caught. The children, who alone have the speed to catch birds, have no desire to stop time. For the children, time moves too slowly already. They rush from moment to moment, anxious for birthdays and new years, barely able to wait for the rest of their lives. The elderly desperately wish to halt time, but are much too slow and fatigued to entrap any bird. For the elderly, time darts by much too quickly. They yearn to capture a single minute at the breakfast table drinking tea, or a moment when a grandchild is stuck getting out of her costume, or an afternoon when the winter sun reflects off the snow and floods the music room with light. But they are too slow. They must watch time jump and fly beyond reach.
Highly Recommended!
Or is it? A mechanical engineer like me is concerned with questions like "Why" and "How" things work. A theoretical physicist like Lightman goes one step further and asks "WHAT IF ...?" And with this step he crosses the border between science and poetry, pushing the limits of our understanding, of our imagination far beyond the Newtonian, rigid, limited understanding of the natural world. Lightman does even more in his tribute to Einstein, in this glorious attempt to translate the theory of relativity into the everyday passions, concerns and aspirations of the people he meets on the streets of the city of Bern, finding beauty and freedom in the so-called cold equations of modern physics.
On this late afternoon, in these few moments while the sun is nestled in a snowy hollow of the Alps, a person could sit beside the lake and contemplate the texture of time. Hypothetically, time might be smooth or rough, prickly or silky, hard or soft. But in this world, the texture of time happens to be sticky. Portions of towns become stuck in some moment of history and do not get out. So, too, individual people become stuck in some point of their lives and do not get free.
WHAT IF time can speed up or slow down, stop like a stalled engine or skip seconds ahead like a child playing hopscotch? What if time moves backward instead of forward, or becomes transparent to the eye of the beholder, allowing glimpses of the future, or becoming opaque and limiting the experience to the present moment only? What if time moves faster as you go up in altitude, like the opposite of gravity? What if time moves in random waves like the clouds above the alps or along predestined paths like a tramway? How will this fickleness of time alter the lives of the people living in one of these alternate, parallel universes? Coming back to that world of stalled time:
The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that every one is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.
Lightman translates all these possibilities into the waking dreams of a genius physicist, weaving into the novel biographical notes and the sights, the history of Bern- the city where Einstein developed his theory of relativity. Wouldn't you rather read a book about the misadventures of time travellers than study differential equations? I wish my physics teacher had given me this novel as homework instead of that formula that covered half the blackboard in the classroom.
Depending on the speed, a person in a fast house could gain several minutes on his neighbors in a single day. This obsession with speed carries through the night, when valuable time could be lost, or gained, while asleep. At night, the streets are ablaze with lights, so that passing houses might avoid collisions, which are always fatal. At night people dream of speed, of youth, of opportunity.
Who can refute Lightman's arguments that time moves differently for different people? To some, it is a snail, a Sunday afternoon spent alone when the phone never rings and the night refuses to come. To others, there are not enough seconds in a day to do all the things they want to do, to meet all the people they love and to read all the books that deserve to be read...
What if time stretches unbroken into infinity and people live forever? "Strangely, the population of each city splits in two: the Latters and the Nows." The Laters are masters of procrastination: why do anything today, when you will have an infinite number of tommorows to start a job, a project, a life... "The Nows are constantly reading new books, studying new trades, new languages. In order to taste the infinities of life, they begin early and never go slowly. And who can question their logic? The Nows are easily spotted. They are the owners of cafes, the college professor, the doctors and nurses, the politicians, the people who rock their legs constantly whenever they sit down. They move through a succession of lives, eager to miss nothing.
And to some precious few, time is alive with possibilities and wonder, and they dream for us a new universe, a universe dancing to the secret music of celestial spheres:
In the middle of a room with books on tables, a young man stands and plays his violin. He makes gentle melody. And as he plays, he looks out to the street below, notices a couple close together, looks at them with deep brown eyes, and looks away. He stands so still. His music is the only movement, his music fills the room.
>><<>><<>><<>><<
Some readers might find the style of presentation familiar. I was struck by the similarities with Italo Calvino, especially with "Invisible Cities" and "Cosmicomiche" . When I reviewed the latter, I described it as what happens when you let a poet loose in a room full of physics manuals. Alan Lightman approaches the subject from the opposite side, a perfect mirror image of Calvino : a scientist who has the sensibility and the way with metaphor of a poet. Together, they arrive at a serendipitous midpoint where science becomes fun and adventurous, where numbers become living people breathing, running, loving, dreaming. Quick or slow, time stops for nobody, and in the final pages of his unique novel, Lightman echoes the wisdom of the ancients and invites us to seize the day and enjoy being alive:
In a world where time is a sense, like sight or like taste, a sequence of episodes may be quick or may be slow, dim or intense, salty or sweet, causal or without cause, orderly or random, depending on the prior history of the viewer. Philosophers sit in cafes on Amthausgasse and argue whether time really exists outside human perception. Who can say if an event happens fast or slow, casually or without cause, in the past or the future? Who can say if events happen at all? The philosophers sit with half-opened eyes and compare their aestethics of time.
also,
Indeed, each man and each woman desires a bird. Because this flock of nightingales is time. Time flutters and fidgets and hops with these birds. Trap one of these nightingales beneath a bell jar and time stops. The moment is frozen for all people and trees and soil caught within.
In truth, these birds are rarely caught. The children, who alone have the speed to catch birds, have no desire to stop time. For the children, time moves too slowly already. They rush from moment to moment, anxious for birthdays and new years, barely able to wait for the rest of their lives. The elderly desperately wish to halt time, but are much too slow and fatigued to entrap any bird. For the elderly, time darts by much too quickly. They yearn to capture a single minute at the breakfast table drinking tea, or a moment when a grandchild is stuck getting out of her costume, or an afternoon when the winter sun reflects off the snow and floods the music room with light. But they are too slow. They must watch time jump and fly beyond reach.
Highly Recommended!
April 22, 2025
A unique philosophical examination of the human condition!
At first blush, for the briefest of moments, one might be excused for thinking that EINSTEIN'S DREAMS was science fiction or perhaps even physics! But, in fact, Alan Lightman has treated us to an enchanting metaphysical flight of fancy loosely based on that most counterintuitive of ideas that Einstein shared with the world in his General Theory of Relativity - the idea that time is an integral part of the structure of the universe but that it is flexible, ever-changing and dependent on the frame of reference of the observer.
EINSTEIN'S DREAMS is a collage of short, lucid essays that Lightman puts forward as the nocturnal dreamscapes in which a sensitive Einstein might have wandered as his intense genius created his famous theories. Worlds in which time stands still, runs backward, runs at varying speeds dependent on your location, passes in a circular ever-repeating pattern, or runs in a discontinuous pattern of starts and stops, for example, are the setting for a metaphorical examination of humanity's responses to these changing notions of time.
Lightman's elegant narrative prose, near poetry in its simple style and elegance, explores the human condition and demonstrates that such notions as love and hate, motivation or despair, joy or despondency and creativity are implicity dependent on our unstated understanding of the passage of time.
EINSTEIN'S DREAMS is a short read that will occupy littler more than an hour or two to complete but it is thought-provoking, fascinating and quite compelling despite its appealing brevity and simplicity.
Paul Weiss
At first blush, for the briefest of moments, one might be excused for thinking that EINSTEIN'S DREAMS was science fiction or perhaps even physics! But, in fact, Alan Lightman has treated us to an enchanting metaphysical flight of fancy loosely based on that most counterintuitive of ideas that Einstein shared with the world in his General Theory of Relativity - the idea that time is an integral part of the structure of the universe but that it is flexible, ever-changing and dependent on the frame of reference of the observer.
EINSTEIN'S DREAMS is a collage of short, lucid essays that Lightman puts forward as the nocturnal dreamscapes in which a sensitive Einstein might have wandered as his intense genius created his famous theories. Worlds in which time stands still, runs backward, runs at varying speeds dependent on your location, passes in a circular ever-repeating pattern, or runs in a discontinuous pattern of starts and stops, for example, are the setting for a metaphorical examination of humanity's responses to these changing notions of time.
Lightman's elegant narrative prose, near poetry in its simple style and elegance, explores the human condition and demonstrates that such notions as love and hate, motivation or despair, joy or despondency and creativity are implicity dependent on our unstated understanding of the passage of time.
EINSTEIN'S DREAMS is a short read that will occupy littler more than an hour or two to complete but it is thought-provoking, fascinating and quite compelling despite its appealing brevity and simplicity.
Paul Weiss
January 17, 2020
Maybe time isn鈥檛 really made of rhubarb and custard after all, as scientists believe. Maybe it floweth in multifarious directions. Perhaps it floweth upside down. You never know. In such a world things happen with precise but inverted logic. Authors discover the books they will write by reading the reviews of their unwritten books on 欧宝娱乐. They are very grateful for the reviews which merely recapitulate the plot, this is very valuable information. They don鈥檛 mind too much if one review is a parody of their book 鈥� it鈥檚 also useful, they can get an idea of the required style from that. But wait, there鈥檚 something they have to do first. They take themselves off to a large bookshop, and there they see piles of their as yet unwritten novel in the window. Great! Next day they get an email from their agent saying the book has been accepted by the publisher. And only then can they start to write it, consulting the notes from all the 欧宝娱乐 reviews as they do. Of course there could also be a world where the letters s and t don鈥檛 exist. (Why would they not exist? To save time! Sorry, ime. Sorry, orry.) In that world this novel is called Einein鈥� Dream. And the longest river in America is the Miiippi.
October 28, 2015
There are few things more disappointing than seeing an author take an idea that should fascinate and surprise us, and reducing it until it is little more than a dull blip. In the process of trying to render them accessible to his audience, he stripped from them anything that might be really challenging or thought-provoking. In the end, his writing simply lacked the subtlety and power required.
The work is structured like that of other authors seeking aphoristic profundity, like Borges, Calvino, where each little story presents a different view of the world, a fantastical idea that twists our reality and how we see it, and while all these different views of the world might seem incompatible and impossible, we come to realize that each one represents a real way of looking at the world and that, when we take them all together, they present a grand view of all the strange and contradictory ways that we do look at our world, from person to person and moment to moment.
It was a style taken from the metaphysical poet, like Petrarch, who created a poetic cycle where the combined meaning of all the poems, when taken together, was much larger than the mere summation of its parts. But unlike those writers, Lightman's stories lack profundity, they are just too small and safe to be truly affecting.
The first and most obvious problem is the voice and tone of the stories, which is always the same throughout. There are no changes in pacing or emotional quality, and so they all start melting together into an undifferentiated mass. We get many of the same techniques you'd expect from a first year creative writing class, where every scene is set with the same list of everyday things (a street, a building, the sound of a cart, a brief description of the weather), and then we're given some little slice of life from the characters with no emotional arc or resolution, and then the camera drifts away again, leaving us with some some vague, pseudo-spiritual narration.
The whole thing was oddly saccharine--the theories of Einstein by way of greeting card--even the sad moments were rather precious in their sadness. It all becomes so formulaic, so quickly that it felt less like Lightman intended to blow my mind than to lull me to sleep with this plodding chant.
Each story takes some idea of how time might behave differently and tries to present it to us, but Lightman never pushes the envelope, never presents us with anything truly weird or puzzling. It reminded me of LeGuin's critique of literary writers 'slumming it' in genres like fantasy, sci fi, and horror, because it seems interesting--but not really understanding the genre they're writing in (and never getting called on it, because Lit critiques don't know anything about genre, either).
So, they end up taking ideas that other writers and thinkers have been exploring for decades and presenting them to us as if they are still new. He does this with the idea of 'eternal return', which Nietzsche was writing about a century ago, and which appeared in Egyptian and Buddhist thought thousands of years ago.
Needless to say, a lot of people have said a lot of things about this idea over the centuries, from philosophers and theologians to sci fi and fantasy authors, and so it's simply not enough to plop it down before your audience and say 'isn't that cool?', while completely ignoring the depth and complexity surrounding it. It makes this book feel less like hearing the thoughts of a guy with a physics degree (which Lightman has), and more like sitting in a dorm room while a guy packs another bowl and says 'Whoa dudes, what if time was, like, a circle?'
The profound part isn't just asking the question, but digging deeper into what that question says about our world, and ourselves. Lightman does try to do this in some of his shorts, but just seems to lack the necessary imagination to provide us with a truly unusual take on things.
When he presents the idea of the 鈥榖utterfly effect鈥�, he gives us some accidental time travelers who hide in corners because they are so afraid that they might kick up a bit of dust which will make someone late, which will mean some great man will never be born--and yet, isn鈥檛 it just as likely that their minor effect would instead prevent some terrible murderer from having been born? Hell, if a nostalgic misanthrope were sent back in time, he might try to change everything he could, because it 鈥榗ouldn鈥檛 be worse than what we have now鈥�.
The simplistic presentation means that we as readers are missing out on an entire side of the issue. If the travelers were instead afraid of changing things because then they would return to a future they don鈥檛 recognize, where things familiar to them would be replaced by inexplicable events, in effect turning them into madmen convinced the world is not as it should be, that would have been more interesting, because it presents the idea with a more complete and universal experience.
Likewise, in another story depicting a reality that has a known end of the world, he shows everyone as just being happy and accepting it, wrapping it up with all the emotional depth of a . He takes pains to give us all these strange sci fi scenarios, and yet every character in them is somehow more bland and milquetoast than any real person--and when writing a piece of speculative fantasy, you don't want it to come off as less weird than life. To really bring a setting home to readers, you have to be able to deliver it through the odd little reactions of your characters: how does it change their lives, and how they think?
That鈥檚 how an author like Chekhov delivers the strangeness of our own little world to us, through these queer characters and their queer little thoughts--that somehow strike us as just right when we read them, even though we鈥檇 never thought of them that way before, ourselves. Lightman seems to be doing the opposite: taking a world that should be fascinating and interesting, that should tell us something about ourselves, make us question our own biases and assumptions, yet somehow making it all bland and flat and generic.
He also seems to have trouble keeping track of his own ideas as they unfold--for instance, he depicts for us a world where instead of time moving along from moment to moment, it exists all together as a multitude of moments, like pictures in a photo album--and yet, one of the images he gives us is 鈥榯he first time seeing the ocean鈥�. If all of these moments coexist outside of the context of temporal progression, how can there be a 鈥榝irst time鈥�? How does that make sense within the confines of this setting?
Similarly, when he depicts a world where time runs backwards, an old woman grows younger and gradually knows less and less, until becoming a child, he talks about her reverting to her college age and 鈥榮eeing her husband for the first time鈥�--but in this world, as time runs backwards, shouldn鈥檛 she be seeing him for the last time?--to me that seems a much more poignant moment when imagining a world like this. To have these stories get lost in a muddle of points of view, switching between the reader鈥檚 and the character鈥檚, is an utter shame, because it completely misses out on what makes the setting strange in the first place.
Of course, some people might suggest that it鈥檚 not meant to be entirely rational, because each story is supposed to be a dream from the mind of Einstein. So, these little contradictions and short-falls would then represent the arbitrary nature of dreams. But if these are dreams, they aren鈥檛 the kind you bother to share the next morning, because they aren鈥檛 particularly fantastical or disturbing or odd, in fact they鈥檙e pretty quotidian. It ends up feeling more like the dreams your cubicle mate bores your with than the dreams of one of the greatest and most imaginative thinkers of the 20th Century.
Lightman鈥檚 little stories just aren鈥檛 that profound, he鈥檚 not pushing hard enough, not tearing the veil and forcing us to acknowledge some strange and incompatible view we had not considered before--and though he doesn鈥檛 have the contemptuous 鈥榳ake up sheeple!鈥� tone of something like or Ishmael , nonetheless he has more in common with these than with a mind-bending author like Kafka.
It's certainly fascinating that modern physicists are now reconsidering ancient ideas like eternal recurrence in light of recent theories like quantum physics, but you don't get any of that from these 鈥楶hilosophy Lite鈥� stories. In some ways it reminds me of the debacle surrounding the film What the Bleep Do We Know!?, where a bunch of prominent physicists were brought in and interviewed about the nature of reality, and then the filmmakers edited those interviews down, presenting these responses completely out of context, and used them to support their own nonsense theories about psychic powers--much to the chagrin of all the scientists involved.
And the real pity there is that, if the filmmakers had actually listened to what the scientists were saying, they would have discovered that modern science is producing findings far more remarkable and strange than ESP. And that鈥檚 the problem with Lightman, too: he鈥檚 just not giving us the really unusual stuff, because he鈥檚 watering it down too much, making it bland and palatable when it should be shocking and beggar belief. It鈥檚 really a disservice to Einstein, a man whose unusual (but true) ideas deserve to be understood by the lay person, because of the ways in which they have fundamentally changed our conception of the world around us.
Better to read something like Hawking's A Brief History of Time, or Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World, or some of Richard Feynman's works--or just go back and watch some episodes of Cosmos. Any chapter from one of those will give you more than the entirety of this book.
The work is structured like that of other authors seeking aphoristic profundity, like Borges, Calvino, where each little story presents a different view of the world, a fantastical idea that twists our reality and how we see it, and while all these different views of the world might seem incompatible and impossible, we come to realize that each one represents a real way of looking at the world and that, when we take them all together, they present a grand view of all the strange and contradictory ways that we do look at our world, from person to person and moment to moment.
It was a style taken from the metaphysical poet, like Petrarch, who created a poetic cycle where the combined meaning of all the poems, when taken together, was much larger than the mere summation of its parts. But unlike those writers, Lightman's stories lack profundity, they are just too small and safe to be truly affecting.
The first and most obvious problem is the voice and tone of the stories, which is always the same throughout. There are no changes in pacing or emotional quality, and so they all start melting together into an undifferentiated mass. We get many of the same techniques you'd expect from a first year creative writing class, where every scene is set with the same list of everyday things (a street, a building, the sound of a cart, a brief description of the weather), and then we're given some little slice of life from the characters with no emotional arc or resolution, and then the camera drifts away again, leaving us with some some vague, pseudo-spiritual narration.
The whole thing was oddly saccharine--the theories of Einstein by way of greeting card--even the sad moments were rather precious in their sadness. It all becomes so formulaic, so quickly that it felt less like Lightman intended to blow my mind than to lull me to sleep with this plodding chant.
Each story takes some idea of how time might behave differently and tries to present it to us, but Lightman never pushes the envelope, never presents us with anything truly weird or puzzling. It reminded me of LeGuin's critique of literary writers 'slumming it' in genres like fantasy, sci fi, and horror, because it seems interesting--but not really understanding the genre they're writing in (and never getting called on it, because Lit critiques don't know anything about genre, either).
So, they end up taking ideas that other writers and thinkers have been exploring for decades and presenting them to us as if they are still new. He does this with the idea of 'eternal return', which Nietzsche was writing about a century ago, and which appeared in Egyptian and Buddhist thought thousands of years ago.
Needless to say, a lot of people have said a lot of things about this idea over the centuries, from philosophers and theologians to sci fi and fantasy authors, and so it's simply not enough to plop it down before your audience and say 'isn't that cool?', while completely ignoring the depth and complexity surrounding it. It makes this book feel less like hearing the thoughts of a guy with a physics degree (which Lightman has), and more like sitting in a dorm room while a guy packs another bowl and says 'Whoa dudes, what if time was, like, a circle?'
The profound part isn't just asking the question, but digging deeper into what that question says about our world, and ourselves. Lightman does try to do this in some of his shorts, but just seems to lack the necessary imagination to provide us with a truly unusual take on things.
When he presents the idea of the 鈥榖utterfly effect鈥�, he gives us some accidental time travelers who hide in corners because they are so afraid that they might kick up a bit of dust which will make someone late, which will mean some great man will never be born--and yet, isn鈥檛 it just as likely that their minor effect would instead prevent some terrible murderer from having been born? Hell, if a nostalgic misanthrope were sent back in time, he might try to change everything he could, because it 鈥榗ouldn鈥檛 be worse than what we have now鈥�.
The simplistic presentation means that we as readers are missing out on an entire side of the issue. If the travelers were instead afraid of changing things because then they would return to a future they don鈥檛 recognize, where things familiar to them would be replaced by inexplicable events, in effect turning them into madmen convinced the world is not as it should be, that would have been more interesting, because it presents the idea with a more complete and universal experience.
Likewise, in another story depicting a reality that has a known end of the world, he shows everyone as just being happy and accepting it, wrapping it up with all the emotional depth of a . He takes pains to give us all these strange sci fi scenarios, and yet every character in them is somehow more bland and milquetoast than any real person--and when writing a piece of speculative fantasy, you don't want it to come off as less weird than life. To really bring a setting home to readers, you have to be able to deliver it through the odd little reactions of your characters: how does it change their lives, and how they think?
That鈥檚 how an author like Chekhov delivers the strangeness of our own little world to us, through these queer characters and their queer little thoughts--that somehow strike us as just right when we read them, even though we鈥檇 never thought of them that way before, ourselves. Lightman seems to be doing the opposite: taking a world that should be fascinating and interesting, that should tell us something about ourselves, make us question our own biases and assumptions, yet somehow making it all bland and flat and generic.
He also seems to have trouble keeping track of his own ideas as they unfold--for instance, he depicts for us a world where instead of time moving along from moment to moment, it exists all together as a multitude of moments, like pictures in a photo album--and yet, one of the images he gives us is 鈥榯he first time seeing the ocean鈥�. If all of these moments coexist outside of the context of temporal progression, how can there be a 鈥榝irst time鈥�? How does that make sense within the confines of this setting?
Similarly, when he depicts a world where time runs backwards, an old woman grows younger and gradually knows less and less, until becoming a child, he talks about her reverting to her college age and 鈥榮eeing her husband for the first time鈥�--but in this world, as time runs backwards, shouldn鈥檛 she be seeing him for the last time?--to me that seems a much more poignant moment when imagining a world like this. To have these stories get lost in a muddle of points of view, switching between the reader鈥檚 and the character鈥檚, is an utter shame, because it completely misses out on what makes the setting strange in the first place.
Of course, some people might suggest that it鈥檚 not meant to be entirely rational, because each story is supposed to be a dream from the mind of Einstein. So, these little contradictions and short-falls would then represent the arbitrary nature of dreams. But if these are dreams, they aren鈥檛 the kind you bother to share the next morning, because they aren鈥檛 particularly fantastical or disturbing or odd, in fact they鈥檙e pretty quotidian. It ends up feeling more like the dreams your cubicle mate bores your with than the dreams of one of the greatest and most imaginative thinkers of the 20th Century.
Lightman鈥檚 little stories just aren鈥檛 that profound, he鈥檚 not pushing hard enough, not tearing the veil and forcing us to acknowledge some strange and incompatible view we had not considered before--and though he doesn鈥檛 have the contemptuous 鈥榳ake up sheeple!鈥� tone of something like or Ishmael , nonetheless he has more in common with these than with a mind-bending author like Kafka.
It's certainly fascinating that modern physicists are now reconsidering ancient ideas like eternal recurrence in light of recent theories like quantum physics, but you don't get any of that from these 鈥楶hilosophy Lite鈥� stories. In some ways it reminds me of the debacle surrounding the film What the Bleep Do We Know!?, where a bunch of prominent physicists were brought in and interviewed about the nature of reality, and then the filmmakers edited those interviews down, presenting these responses completely out of context, and used them to support their own nonsense theories about psychic powers--much to the chagrin of all the scientists involved.
And the real pity there is that, if the filmmakers had actually listened to what the scientists were saying, they would have discovered that modern science is producing findings far more remarkable and strange than ESP. And that鈥檚 the problem with Lightman, too: he鈥檚 just not giving us the really unusual stuff, because he鈥檚 watering it down too much, making it bland and palatable when it should be shocking and beggar belief. It鈥檚 really a disservice to Einstein, a man whose unusual (but true) ideas deserve to be understood by the lay person, because of the ways in which they have fundamentally changed our conception of the world around us.
Better to read something like Hawking's A Brief History of Time, or Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World, or some of Richard Feynman's works--or just go back and watch some episodes of Cosmos. Any chapter from one of those will give you more than the entirety of this book.
August 21, 2014
I didn't quite get this book. I am sure it simply went over my head. I'm no stranger to physics and what-not so I figured this would be a good read. My review below is evidence of my frustration with this book.
I don't understand how people not only rated this book so highly, but also claim to have had some kind of enlightening experience from having read it. I thought this book was incredibly kitchy. Each chapter is a vignette of a world with some perturbation in the way time itself works, and by the end of each chapter I feel the author trying to push some point about how all of these vignettes are actually describing some aspect of time in reality. That we should all stop and smell the roses, etc.
I will give it to the author that yes, sometimes we need to see the absurd to recognize the flaws in our thought patterns (such as working on mechanical time rather than body time, or that we should live in the moment and not dread the future or dwell on the past). I get it. This is evident in the first few stories and seems to be repeated throughout.
I feel like the author (professor of both physics and writing at MIT) is someone who has never been criticized because everyone has always been too polite to do so. In this book, I think Dr. Lightman abuses both science and art. Unless I am just too dense to "get it." The scenarios make no sense... if everyone stops working because the world is ending, then who exactly are they ordering bread from in such a more pleasant way? If the butcher forgets where he lives daily, and even that he has a family, then why would he go back to the butcher shop every morning?
The aspects of time that are being stretched aren't even consistent with physics. Why would people have to pay more for a house that moves fast if they would never notice any benefit from it? being that they too are moving fast and therefore time would ravage the house at the same rate as if they were both sitting still. And similarly for the lovers near the center of time where "a kiss could last a thousand years"? It would only last a second to those two lovers... they wouldn't notice any difference in time, only outside viewers would. Relativity man, c'mon... this is Einstein 101 stuff...
Again I've found nothing profound in this book. Since my opinion goes against pretty much all the other reviews I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that I'm missing some really important points here. I seriously doubt the distinguished and best-selling professor of physics and writing from MIT would produce something that sounds like a collection of failed short stories that a high school aged kid would write unless there was a reason to do so.
Please, someone, point me to what I am missing here. I yearn for the kind of experience the other reviews mention, especially with this book. I obviously need to be educated here.
I don't understand how people not only rated this book so highly, but also claim to have had some kind of enlightening experience from having read it. I thought this book was incredibly kitchy. Each chapter is a vignette of a world with some perturbation in the way time itself works, and by the end of each chapter I feel the author trying to push some point about how all of these vignettes are actually describing some aspect of time in reality. That we should all stop and smell the roses, etc.
I will give it to the author that yes, sometimes we need to see the absurd to recognize the flaws in our thought patterns (such as working on mechanical time rather than body time, or that we should live in the moment and not dread the future or dwell on the past). I get it. This is evident in the first few stories and seems to be repeated throughout.
I feel like the author (professor of both physics and writing at MIT) is someone who has never been criticized because everyone has always been too polite to do so. In this book, I think Dr. Lightman abuses both science and art. Unless I am just too dense to "get it." The scenarios make no sense... if everyone stops working because the world is ending, then who exactly are they ordering bread from in such a more pleasant way? If the butcher forgets where he lives daily, and even that he has a family, then why would he go back to the butcher shop every morning?
The aspects of time that are being stretched aren't even consistent with physics. Why would people have to pay more for a house that moves fast if they would never notice any benefit from it? being that they too are moving fast and therefore time would ravage the house at the same rate as if they were both sitting still. And similarly for the lovers near the center of time where "a kiss could last a thousand years"? It would only last a second to those two lovers... they wouldn't notice any difference in time, only outside viewers would. Relativity man, c'mon... this is Einstein 101 stuff...
Again I've found nothing profound in this book. Since my opinion goes against pretty much all the other reviews I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that I'm missing some really important points here. I seriously doubt the distinguished and best-selling professor of physics and writing from MIT would produce something that sounds like a collection of failed short stories that a high school aged kid would write unless there was a reason to do so.
Please, someone, point me to what I am missing here. I yearn for the kind of experience the other reviews mention, especially with this book. I obviously need to be educated here.
June 24, 2016
賲毓 賲乇賵乇 丕賱夭賲賳 孬賲丞 毓丿丿 賱丕 賳賴丕卅賷 賲賳 丕賱毓賵丕賱賲賳丨賳 賳毓賷卮 賮賷 丕賱夭賲賳貙 賵賲毓 丕賱夭賲賳貙 兀賵 賰賲丕 賷購賯丕賱 賳毓賷卮 丿丕卅賲賸丕 賮賷 爻亘丕賯 賲毓 丕賱夭賲賳. 賳乇丕賯亘 丨乇賰丕鬲賴貙 爻賰賳丕鬲賴貙 兀丿賳賶 丨乇賰丞 鬲氐丿乇 賲賳賴 毓賱賶 卮賰賱 兀賯賱 賲賳 丕賱孬丕賳賷丞 賵賳爻毓賶 賱賯賷丕爻賴 亘賰丕賮丞 丕賱賵爻丕卅賱 賵丕賱丕爻鬲賮丕丿丞 賲賳賴 亘賰丕賮丞 丕賱胤乇賯 毓賱賶 丕賱賲爻鬲賵賶 丕賱毓賱賲賷 賵毓賱賶 賲爻鬲賵賶 丕賱丨賷丕丞 兀賷囟賸丕 賵賴匕丕 賴賵 丕賱兀賴賲 賵丕賱兀賰孬乇 卮賷賵毓賸丕.
賳丨賳 丿賵賲賸丕 賲丕 賳丨丕賵賱 丕賳鬲夭丕毓 爻丕毓丕鬲/賱丨馗丕鬲 廿囟丕賮賷丞 毓賳賵丞 賲賳 丕賱夭賲賳貙 賳丨丕賵賱 兀賳 賳乇丕賵睾賴 乇睾賲 兀賳賳丕 賳毓賱賲 亘囟毓賮 賯丿乇鬲賳丕 兀賲丕賲賴貙 亘賯丿乇鬲賴 毓賱賶 丕賱丕爻鬲賯賱丕賱 賵丕賱賲囟賷 賯丿賲賸丕 丿賵賳 丕賱丕賱鬲賮丕鬲 賱賱丨馗丕鬲 丕賱鬲賷 賳乇賷丿 廿賷賯丕賮賴丕 賰賱丨馗丕鬲 丕賱爻毓丕丿丞 賵丕賱賱丨馗丕鬲 丕賱鬲賷 賳賯囟賷賴丕 賲毓 賲賳 賳丨亘 賵賱丨馗丕鬲 丕賱毓賲賱 賵賱丨馗丕鬲 賲丕 賯亘賱 丕賱丕禺鬲亘丕乇丕鬲 丕賱鬲賷 賳乇賷丿 兀賳 賳賵賯賮賴丕 賰賷 賳乇爻賲 賲爻鬲賯亘賱賳丕 丕賱禺丕氐 亘丨乇賷丞 丿賵賳 丕賱爻亘丕賯 賲毓 丕賱夭賲賳 賵鬲睾賷乇丕鬲賴.
賷禺丕賮 亘毓囟 丕賱亘卮乇 賲賳 丕賱爻賮乇 亘毓賷丿賸丕 毓賳 賱丨馗丞 賲乇賷丨丞貙 賷亘賯賵賳 賯乇賷亘賷賳 賲賳 賲賵賯毓 賵丕丨丿 賲丐賯鬲 賱丕 賷賰丕丿賵賳 賷毓亘乇賵賳 賲爻丕賮丞 賲兀賱賵賮丞貙 賷乇賰囟 丌禺乇賵賳 亘禺賮丞 賵胤賷卮 廿賱賶 丕賱賲爻鬲賯亘賱 丿賵賳 丕爻鬲毓丿丕丿 賱鬲毓丕賯亘 丕賱兀丨丿丕孬 丕賱毓丕亘乇丞 丕賱爻乇賷毓丞.毓賱丕賯鬲賳丕 賲毓 丕賱夭賲賳 賱丕 鬲毓丿賵 賰賵賳賴丕 毓賱丕賯丞 賳賮毓賷丞 丨賷賳賸丕 兀賵 鬲賳丕賮爻賷丞 丨賷賳賸丕 丌禺乇貙 賱賰賳 賮賷 賰賱 丕賱兀丨賵丕賱 賱丕 賷賲賰賳 賱賴丕 兀賳 鬲賰賵賳 毓賱丕賯丞 鬲兀賲賱賷丞 鈥撡嗀官� 賳乇丕賯亘賴 賱賰賳 賱丕 賳鬲兀賲賱賴 賵丕賱賮乇賯 賰亘賷乇- 賮賯胤 賰賷 鬲購禺賱賯 毓賱丕賯丞 丕賱鬲兀賲賱 賴匕賴 鬲丨鬲丕噩 毓丕賱賲 兀賵 賮賷賱爻賵賮 兀賵 賲噩賳賵賳貙 賵兀毓鬲賯丿 兀賳賴 賱賷爻 賴賳丕賰 兀賮囟賱 賲賳 丌賷賳卮鬲賷賳 鬲噩鬲賲毓 賮賷賴 鈥撡勝娯� 氐賮丞 賵丕丨丿丞 賲賳 賴匕賴 丕賱氐賮丕鬲- 亘賱 噩賲賷毓賴賳.
丕賱乇賵丕賷丞 毓賳 "兀丨賱丕賲 丌賷賳卮鬲賷賳" 兀賵 亘丕賱兀丨乇賶 鬲兀賲賱丕鬲賴 毓賳 丕賱夭賲賳 賵毓賳 卮賰賱 丕賱夭賲賳 賵毓賱丕賯鬲賴 亘丕賱毓丕賱賲 丕賱匕賷 賳毓賷卮 賮賷賴貙 賵賲毓 丕賱賰孬賷乇 賲賳 丕賱丕賮鬲乇丕囟丕鬲 賱兀卮賰丕賱 賲禺鬲賱賮丞 賲賳 丕賱夭賲賳 鬲禺賱賯 亘丿賵乇賴丕 毓賵丕賱賲 兀禺乇賶 賲禺鬲賱賮丞.
賴匕賴 丕賱丕賮鬲乇丕囟丕鬲 鬲購丿乇賰 賲賳 禺賱丕賱賴丕 賰賷賮 兀賳 丕賱夭賲賳 賷賲賰賳賴 丕賱鬲丨賰賲 賮賷 兀卮賷丕亍 兀禺乇賶 賰丕賱匕丕賰乇丞 (卮賰賱賴丕- 賵噩賵丿賴丕- 毓丿賲 賵噩賵丿賴丕) 賵丕賱兀丨丿丕孬 (賰賷賮賷丞 丨丿賵孬賴丕- 鬲賰乇丕乇賴丕- 賰賷賮賷丞 丕賱鬲毓丕賲賱 賲毓賴丕 賮賷 賰賱 丨丕賱丞) 丕賱賯乇丕乇丕鬲 丕賱鬲賷 賳鬲禺匕賴丕 賵鬲兀孬賷乇 卮賰賱 丕賱夭賲賳 毓賱賷賴丕 (賮廿匕丕 賰丕賳 毓丕賱賲賳丕 賷賲賰賳賴 丕賱鬲丨賰賲 賮賷 丕賱夭賲賳 賷毓賳賷 賴匕丕 鬲丨賰賲賳丕 賮賷 賯乇丕乇鬲賳丕貙 鬲賳賮賷匕賴丕 賵賲賳 孬賲 丕賱乇噩賵毓 亘丕賱夭賲賳 賱賱鬲乇丕噩毓 毓賳賴丕 賵丕賱毓賰爻 亘丕賱毓賰爻) 毓賱丕賯丞 丕賱夭賲賳 亘兀卮賷丕亍 賰孬賷乇丞 賮賷 毓丕賱賲賳丕貙 亘賰賱 卮賷亍 賮賷 毓丕賱賲賳丕貙 毓丕賱賲賳丕 丕賱匕賷 賷亘丿賵 兀賳 賰賱 卮賷亍 亘賴 賱賴 毓賱丕賯丞 亘賰賱 卮賷亍
賷爻鬲禺賮 丕賱亘毓囟 亘丕賱賯乇丕乇丕鬲 賯丕卅賱賷賳 兀賳 噩賲賷毓 丕賱賯乇丕乇丕鬲 丕賱賲賲賰賳丞 爻鬲購鬲禺匕. 賮賷 毓丕賱賲 賰賴匕丕 賰賷賮 賷爻鬲胤賷毓 丕賱賲乇亍 兀賳 賷賰賵賳 賲爻丐賵賱丕賸 毓賳 兀賮毓丕賱賴責 賷毓鬲賯丿 丌禺乇賵賳 兀賳 噩賲賷毓 丕賱賯乇丕乇丕鬲 賷噩亘 兀賳 鬲丐禺匕 亘毓賷賳 丕賱丕毓鬲亘丕乇 賵賷購賱鬲夭賲 亘賴丕 賵兀賳賴 亘丿賵賳 丕賱鬲夭丕賲 賷丨賱 丕賱毓賲丕亍. 廿賳 亘卮乇賸丕 賰賴丐賱丕亍 賷乇囟賵賳 兀賳 賷毓賷卮賵丕 賮賷 毓賵丕賱賲 賲鬲賳丕賯囟丞 胤丕賱賲丕 兀賳賴賲 賷毓乇賮賵賳 爻亘亘 賰賱 賲賳賴丕.丕賱毓賵丕賱賲 丕賱鬲賷 丕賮鬲乇囟鬲賴丕 丕賱乇賵丕賷丞 賲鬲賳賵毓丞 賱賱睾丕賷丞貙 亘毓囟賴丕 賷鬲賰乇乇 賮賷賴 丕賱夭賲賳 賲乇丕乇賸丕 賵鬲賰乇丕乇賸丕 賵丕賱兀丨丿丕孬 亘賴 賰賲丕 賴賷 鬲賲丕賲賸丕 (丕賱毓賵丿 丕賱兀亘丿賷 賱賳賷鬲卮賴 賮賷賲丕 亘毓丿) 賵兀丨賷丕賳賸丕 鬲禺鬲賱賮 丕賱兀丨丿丕孬 賵賷賰賵賳 賴賳丕賰 兀賰孬乇 賲賳 丕禺鬲賷丕乇 賵賮乇囟賷丞 兀賲丕賲賰 賷賲賰賳賰 兀賳 鬲爻賱賰賴丕 賵毓賱賶 兀爻丕爻賴丕 鬲鬲賯亘賱 賰賱 丕賱兀丨丿丕孬 丕賱鬲賷 爻鬲賳鬲噩 毓賳賴丕.
賴賳丕賰 毓丕賱賲 亘夭賲賳 賲毓賰賵爻 (賲賳 丕賱賲賵鬲 廿賱賶 丕賱卮賷禺賵禺丞 廿賱賶 丕賱卮亘丕亘 廿賱賶 丕賱胤賮賵賱丞 廿賱賶 丕賱賵賱丕丿丞) 賴賳丕賰 毓丕賱賲 亘夭賲賳 賲賳 賷賵賲 賵丕丨丿 (賴匕丕 噩賷丿 賱賱賲鬲卮丕卅賲賷賳 兀賲孬丕賱 爻賷賵乇丕賳 賵賱賲賳 賷卮毓乇賵賳 亘丕賱爻禺胤 毓賱賶 丕賱毓丕賱賲 賵賱丕 賷爻鬲胤賷毓賵賳 丕丨鬲賲丕賱賴 賵賱賲賳 賷賳鬲丨乇 賴乇亘賸丕 賲賳賴 賮爻賷賲囟賶 丕賱賵賯鬲/丕賱毓丕賱賲/丕賱丨賷丕丞 爻乇賷毓賸丕貙 賳賴丕乇 賵丕丨丿 賵賱賷賱 賵丕丨丿 賵賴匕丕 賰賱 賲丕 賮賷 丕賱兀賲乇) 賵丕賱賰孬賷乇 丕賱賰孬賷乇 賲賳 丕賱丕賮鬲乇丕囟丕鬲 丨賵賱 丕賱夭賲賳.
禺賷丕賱 噩丕賲丨 賱賰賳賴 賲賲鬲毓 賱賱睾丕賷丞貙 鬲賲賳賷鬲 賱賵 賰丕賳 賱賱乇賵丕賷丞 亘胤賱丞 賴賷 兀賳丕 兀賯賵賲 亘鬲噩乇亘丞 賰賱 夭賲賳 賮賷 賰賱 毓丕賱賲 禺丕氐 亘賴 賰賷 兀卮毓乇 亘丕賱賲鬲毓丞 賵丕賱噩賳賵賳貙 賵賰賷 丕禺鬲亘乇 賴賰匕丕 賳賵毓 賲賳 丕賱丨賷丕丞.
賱賰賳 賲賳 亘賷賳 賰丕賮丞 丕賱兀夭賲賳丞貙 賰丕賳 賷亘丿賵 賱賷賾 丕賱夭賲賳 丕賱禺丕氐 亘毓丕賱賲賳丕 (夭賲賳賳丕貙 丕賱夭賲賳 丕賱匕賷 賳毓賷卮 賮賷賴) 賴賵 兀賰孬乇 賳賲賵匕噩 毓賳 丕賱夭賲賳 丨賰賲丞 賵毓賯賱丕賳賷丞 賲賳 亘賷賳賴丕 亘毓賷丿賸丕 毓賳 兀賷 兀爻亘丕亘 賲賷鬲丕賮賷夭賷賯賷丞 賵亘毓賷丿賸丕 兀賷囟賸丕 毓賳 丕爻鬲賳鬲丕噩丕鬲 丌賷賳鬲卮鬲賷賳 毓賳 賳爻亘賷丞 丕賱夭賲賳.
兀禺賷乇賸丕貙 兀賳 鬲噩丿 乇賵丕賷丞 (賵賱賷爻 賰鬲丕亘賸丕) 兀賯賵賱 兀賳 鬲噩丿 乇賵丕賷丞 毓賱賲賷丞貙 賵亘賯賱賲 毓丕賱賲 賮賷夭賷丕卅賷 賵鬲賰賵賳 亘賱睾丞 爻賱爻丞 賵賲賲鬲毓丞貙 賵亘兀賮賰丕乇 睾夭賷乇丞 賱賰賳賴丕 睾賷乇 賲鬲賰賱賮丞 賵睾賷乇 兀賰丕丿賷賲賷丞 賴賵 兀賲乇 賳丕丿乇 賵賲賲鬲毓.
賵丕爻鬲孬賳丕卅賷 賮賷 丕賱賵賯鬲 匕丕鬲賴貙 賱賰賳賳賷 乇亘賲丕 賰賳鬲 兀賮囟賱賴丕 兀賰孬乇 賱賵 賰丕賳鬲 賮賱爻賮賷丞 兀賰孬乇.
鬲賲賾鬲
May 4, 2009
Exquisite, Everyone should read this book, everyone should give this book away, it should be thrown from rooftops and forced upon youngsters. I will not venture to commingle a necessarily clunky and didactic summary with the poetic prose that is as much about the feeling stirred from reading each individual word than anything a summary could attempt. Suffice it to say that this book is excellent, beautiful and amazing, if a book is universally capable of changing your life... if only for a moment... this is such a book.
July 25, 2019
Bern is a good setting for a book about the potential malleability of time, since it's one of those places that seems to exist in a chronology all its own. I've spent a lot of time there recently, for reasons connected to a big motorsports event earlier in the summer, and the locals were not very happy about being disturbed. Not for them the excitement of global attention or gawking tourists; they prefer to be left to their own devices, pottering around their pristine medieval town, looped by the shockingly turquoise Aare, and exchanging comments about outsiders in their incomprehensible dialect. (Even the words for 鈥榯he鈥� are different from those in Zurich.) Along the shopping arcades of Kramgasse, people had put up signs telling the event organisers and visitors to 鈥楪o home!鈥�.
Before Kramgasse was a shopping arcade, it was a residential thoroughfare, and one of its residents was a certain A. Einstein. It was while he lived here that he worked out the revolutionary idea that time is not a universal thing at all, but is, in fact, entire relative to your speed and acceleration. Alan Lightman's book is not about that (though Einstein's life here is glimpsed in a few intermissive vignettes); it is, instead, about the paths not taken. By physics, that is.
Each short chapter is a snapshot of (usually) Bern, but in a world where time works differently. In one, time is experienced independently for each person; in another, time travel is a fact of life; in another, it moves backwards. Lightman's technique is formulaic (some sensory impressions of the town, some brief images of people, finally a wistful reflection on time's effects on personal relationships) but thought-provoking; the short chapters blur together with hypnotic effect. Some I found quite moving, while others seemed vaguely unconvincing even according to their own internal logic. But the book is short enough not to outstay its welcome (even among the Bernese).
Before Kramgasse was a shopping arcade, it was a residential thoroughfare, and one of its residents was a certain A. Einstein. It was while he lived here that he worked out the revolutionary idea that time is not a universal thing at all, but is, in fact, entire relative to your speed and acceleration. Alan Lightman's book is not about that (though Einstein's life here is glimpsed in a few intermissive vignettes); it is, instead, about the paths not taken. By physics, that is.
Each short chapter is a snapshot of (usually) Bern, but in a world where time works differently. In one, time is experienced independently for each person; in another, time travel is a fact of life; in another, it moves backwards. Lightman's technique is formulaic (some sensory impressions of the town, some brief images of people, finally a wistful reflection on time's effects on personal relationships) but thought-provoking; the short chapters blur together with hypnotic effect. Some I found quite moving, while others seemed vaguely unconvincing even according to their own internal logic. But the book is short enough not to outstay its welcome (even among the Bernese).
March 15, 2024
I can imagine that unprepared readers will initially be surprised by this book: despite the title, Einstein is not immediately in view. The author jumps from one vignette to another 鈥� 30 in total, short stories that seem to vaguely philosophize about the phenomenon of time, a strange collection of thoughts and ideas, seemingly without meaning. But nothing could be further from the truth. Most pieces are situated in Bern and the surrounding area, the place where Einstein developed his theory of relativity, and the grandmaster himself also appears in the interludes. So maybe, yes. And then you realize that Lightman has moved into Einstein's head, following his thoughts on how strange the phenomenon of time is. And so this becomes a thorough exploration of the theme of time, in the form of thought experiments: what if life only lasted 1 day, or on the contrary, lasted forever? What if there were no future, or time were discontinuous? Would it impact our experience of time? Lightman makes it clear that it would all make a serious difference. The vignettes may be light-hearted fantasies that occasionally remind us of the games of Jorge Borges. But there is a system and a message behind it: time is elusive, but it does make a difference to a real-life person.
July 12, 2015
This was for me a refreshing and delightful read on alternative conceptions of time, borne out of playful thought experiments set among the residents of the city of Berne Switzerland in 1908. These permutations are alternated with interludes from the daily life of Einstein, who was then using his free time as a patent office worker to develop his Special Theory of Relativity, which demands of us to conceive of time as just another dimension in the space-time continuum. Most will have heard of his thought experiments such as illustrating conflicting perceptions of time by observers on a train or at a station as it travels by near the speed of light. The vignettes in this short book are extreme extensions of this approach which draw in the human context and reactions to the various logical and often absurd possibilities.
For example, how might society adapt to knowledge that people living at higher altitudes, which has less gravitational pull from the earth, live longer. Lightman imagines a fad of the wealthy putting dwellings on stilts or on mountains. Given that those in motion experience a slowing of time, might a similar cultural focus on longer life lead to a society where they set their homes and businesses in constant motion on train tracks? The silliness of such scenarios motivated by gaining seconds out of a lifetime doesn鈥檛 hinder the pleasure of such fantasies. Other conceptions strike closer to everyday experience, such a personalities who value events of the past, present, or future to an excessive degree. It is easy to see how different emphases can vary with a person鈥檚 stage in life or age. And we all know people who live totally by schedules of clock time and others who drift along impervious to such restrictions, and some who mark time on a slower than others of a more hyperkinetic mentality. What if temporal reality was actually linked to individual perspectives? A fast paced person would seem to be one who time travels on ahead of fellow time turtles. And if each day we awoke with no past or with no future, could on imagine adapting, finding a way to truly live in a present with only a past or future.
These poetic essays and philosophical fantasies have their closest precedents in the work of Borges an Calvino. Once you鈥檝e walked these strange mental pathways, it will be hard to see your life in time the same again.
For example, how might society adapt to knowledge that people living at higher altitudes, which has less gravitational pull from the earth, live longer. Lightman imagines a fad of the wealthy putting dwellings on stilts or on mountains. Given that those in motion experience a slowing of time, might a similar cultural focus on longer life lead to a society where they set their homes and businesses in constant motion on train tracks? The silliness of such scenarios motivated by gaining seconds out of a lifetime doesn鈥檛 hinder the pleasure of such fantasies. Other conceptions strike closer to everyday experience, such a personalities who value events of the past, present, or future to an excessive degree. It is easy to see how different emphases can vary with a person鈥檚 stage in life or age. And we all know people who live totally by schedules of clock time and others who drift along impervious to such restrictions, and some who mark time on a slower than others of a more hyperkinetic mentality. What if temporal reality was actually linked to individual perspectives? A fast paced person would seem to be one who time travels on ahead of fellow time turtles. And if each day we awoke with no past or with no future, could on imagine adapting, finding a way to truly live in a present with only a past or future.
These poetic essays and philosophical fantasies have their closest precedents in the work of Borges an Calvino. Once you鈥檝e walked these strange mental pathways, it will be hard to see your life in time the same again.
November 2, 2017
Sat铆rico, original, reflexivo. Sue帽os de Einstein es un libro que todos deber铆an leer. Es un conjunto de relatos (muy cortos y con una prosa maravillosa) que expresan los distintos modos que tiene el tiempo de manifestarse. Es decir, 驴qu茅 pasar铆a si el pasado fuese inestable, si todas las ma帽anas cada persona se despertara con un pasado diferente? 驴Qu茅 pasar铆a si se viviera eternamente? 驴Y si no pudi茅ramos aceptar el presente? 驴Y si vivi茅ramos solo un d铆a? 驴Y qu茅 me dicen de un mundo en el que el tiempo transcurra desfasado, en el que la causa y el efecto sean err谩ticos?
La tragedia de este mundo es que nadie es feliz, tanto si se ha quedado pegado a un momento de dolor como a un momento de alegr铆a. La tragedia de este mundo es que todos est谩n solos. Porque una vida en el pasado no puede compartirse con el presente. Cada persona que se ha quedado pegada al tiempo est谩 all铆 clavada, y sola.
Un libro conmovedor que nos hace cuestionar nuestros propios modos de ver la vida y por qu茅 actuamos como actuamos. Lo recomiendo absolutamente.
La tragedia de este mundo es que nadie es feliz, tanto si se ha quedado pegado a un momento de dolor como a un momento de alegr铆a. La tragedia de este mundo es que todos est谩n solos. Porque una vida en el pasado no puede compartirse con el presente. Cada persona que se ha quedado pegada al tiempo est谩 all铆 clavada, y sola.
Un libro conmovedor que nos hace cuestionar nuestros propios modos de ver la vida y por qu茅 actuamos como actuamos. Lo recomiendo absolutamente.
March 30, 2022
兀丨賱丕賲 兀賷賳卮鬲丕賷賳
賲夭噩 禺賻賱賾丕賻亘 亘賷賳 丕賱毓賱賲 賵丕賱賮賱爻賮丞 賵丕賱禺賷丕賱 賵丕賱鬲氐賵賮 賮賶 賵氐賮 丕賱夭賲賳
August 13, 2021
Alan Lightman naci贸 en 1948, tiene un doctorado en f铆sica te贸rica y fue profesor en Harvard y en el MIT. Ha escrito varios libros de divulgaci贸n cient铆fica y un pu帽ado de novelas entre las que se destaca esta, que apenas se edit贸 en 1993 se convirti贸 r谩pidamente en un 茅xito de ventas.
La novela nos lleva a 1905, cuando Einstein trabajaba en una oficina de patentes en Berna y estaba a pocos meses de publicar su teor铆a de la relatividad especial. Lightman imagina a un Einstein tan enfocado en consolidar su te贸rica sobre el tiempo, que cada noche sue帽a y concibe el tiempo de una manera distinta.
As铆, en cada capitulo va imaginando distintos mundos y sus consecuencias en la vida de la gente. Un mundo donde la gente vive un solo d铆a, y quien nace al anochecer pasa la mitad de su vida en plena noche y puede ver en toda su vida un solo amanecer, un mundo donde causa y efecto sean err谩ticos, un mundo donde las personas viven eternamente, un mundo en el que no hay tiempo, solo im谩genes; o un mundo donde el tiempo no transcurre de manera uniforme y la gente tiene visiones s煤bitas del futuro.
Todos los cap铆tulos son cortos, no tienen m谩s de tres paginas. La prosa de Lightman es 谩gil, fluida. Sus frases son cortas y de una tremenda fuerza visual. Utiliza mucho la enumeraci贸n y hay un tono melanc贸lico que acompa帽a gran parte de la novela. No hay grandilocuencia en Lightman, pero en la simpleza de su modesto estilo se pueden encontrar pasajes bell铆simos.
Una peque帽a novela muy recomendable, sobre todo para aquellos que disfrutan con historias que tienen al tiempo como protagonista.
4.5
La novela nos lleva a 1905, cuando Einstein trabajaba en una oficina de patentes en Berna y estaba a pocos meses de publicar su teor铆a de la relatividad especial. Lightman imagina a un Einstein tan enfocado en consolidar su te贸rica sobre el tiempo, que cada noche sue帽a y concibe el tiempo de una manera distinta.
As铆, en cada capitulo va imaginando distintos mundos y sus consecuencias en la vida de la gente. Un mundo donde la gente vive un solo d铆a, y quien nace al anochecer pasa la mitad de su vida en plena noche y puede ver en toda su vida un solo amanecer, un mundo donde causa y efecto sean err谩ticos, un mundo donde las personas viven eternamente, un mundo en el que no hay tiempo, solo im谩genes; o un mundo donde el tiempo no transcurre de manera uniforme y la gente tiene visiones s煤bitas del futuro.
Todos los cap铆tulos son cortos, no tienen m谩s de tres paginas. La prosa de Lightman es 谩gil, fluida. Sus frases son cortas y de una tremenda fuerza visual. Utiliza mucho la enumeraci贸n y hay un tono melanc贸lico que acompa帽a gran parte de la novela. No hay grandilocuencia en Lightman, pero en la simpleza de su modesto estilo se pueden encontrar pasajes bell铆simos.
Una peque帽a novela muy recomendable, sobre todo para aquellos que disfrutan con historias que tienen al tiempo como protagonista.
4.5
July 25, 2023
This book is a series of very short stories on the topic of "time". The writing is very impressive - I can't think of a book that expressed such a high ratio of ideas per page. The ideas are expressed with elegance and creativity. I should probably give it a higher rating, but it just didn't capture my attention thoroughly. I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe if read this at a different time, with a different frame of mind, it would have been more enjoyable. That's the way it goes sometimes...
June 25, 2015
賲賳 賲丿賵賳鬲賷: 孬賲丕賳賵賳 賰鬲丕亘丕 亘丨孬丕 毓賳 賲禺乇噩
***
丨氐賱鬲 毓賱賶 賳爻禺丞 賲賳 賴匕丕 丕賱毓賲賱 賲賳匕 禺賲爻 爻賳賵丕鬲, 賵賲賳匕 匕賱賰 丕賱丨賷賳 賵兀賳丕 兀毓賷丿
賯乇丕亍鬲賴 賲乇賴 賰賱 毓丕賲.
賰鬲丕亘 兀丨賱丕賲 丕賷賳卮鬲丕賷賳 毓亘丕乇丞 毓賳 孬賱丕孬賷賳 賮氐賱丕賸 賯氐賷乇丕賸, 賰賱 賮氐賱 賴賵 賲夭賷噩 賲賳 丕賱賯氐丞 賵丕賱賮賱爻賮丞 賵丕賱毓賱賲 賵丕賱鬲氐賵賮 亘禺氐賵氐 丕賱夭賲賳.
賰賱 賮氐賱 賷丨賰賷 賯氐丞 毓丕賱賲 賲禺鬲賱賮 賱賱夭賲賳 賮賷賴 賯氐丞 賲禺鬲賱賮賴 .. 賮賷 兀丨丿 丕賱毓賵丕賱賲 賷賰賵賳 丕賱夭賲賳 丿丕卅乇賷 賷賰乇乇 賳賮爻賴 廿賱丕 賲丕 賱丕賳賴丕賷丞 .. 賵賮賷 毓丕賱賲 兀禺乇 賷賰賵賳 丕賱夭賲賳 毓亘丕乇丞 毓賳 孬賱丕孬 丕亘毓丕丿 賮賷 賰賱 亘毓丿 賷賰賵賳 賱賰賱 卮禺氐 賯氐丞 賲禺鬲賱賮賴 .. 賵賮賷 毓丕賱賲 兀禺乇 賱丕 賷賵噩丿 賲爻鬲賯亘賱 .. 賵賮賷 毓丕賱賲 兀禺乇 賷鬲睾賷乇 丕賱賲丕囟賷 .. 賵賮賷 毓丕賱賲 兀禺乇 丕賱夭賲賳 賷爻亘賯 丕賱賲丕囟賷 丕賱丨丕囟乇 .. 賵賮賷 毓丕賱賲 丕禺乇 賷賳賮匕 丕賱夭賲賳 .. 賵丕賮賰丕乇 賲噩賳賵賳丞 兀禺乇賶
賱丕 鬲爻鬲胤賷毓 鬲氐賳賷賮 賴匕丕 丕賱毓賲賱 鬲丨鬲 鬲氐賳賷賮 丕賱禺賷丕賱 丕賱毓賱賲賷 廿胤賱丕賯丕賸 賱丕 賲賳 亘毓賷丿 賵賱丕 賲賳 賯乇賷亘 ( 乇睾賲 兀賳 卮賰賱賴 賷亘丿賵 賰匕賱賰 ) 賴匕丕 丕賱毓賲賱 賮賷 丕賱丨賯賷賯丞 毓賲賱 氐賵賮賷 賵噩賵丿賷 廿賳爻丕賳賷 亘丨鬲 .. 賮賷 賰賱 賵丕丨丿丞 賲賳 賴匕賴 丕賱賯氐氐 丕賱賲噩賳賵賳丞 賷鬲禺賷賱 賱丕賷鬲賲丕賳 卮賰賱丕賸 噩丿賷丿丕賸 賱賱夭賲賳 .. 孬賲 賷鬲禺賷賱 毓丕賱賲丕賸 賷丨賰賲賴 賴匕丕 丕賱卮賰賱 .. 亘毓丿 匕賱賰 賷賳賯賱 賱賳丕 氐賵乇丞 賲賳 兀賮賰丕乇 賵賲卮丕毓乇 賵賮賱爻賮丕鬲 丕賱賳丕爻 賮賷 賴匕丕 丕賱毓丕賱賲 .. 賰賷賮 賷鬲氐乇賮 賵賷賮賰乇 賵賷卮毓乇 丕賱賳丕爻 賱賵 賰丕賳 丕賱夭賲賳 賱丕 賷賳鬲賴賷責 賵賰賷賮 賷鬲氐乇賮賵賳 賱賵 賰丕賳 丕賱賲爻鬲賯亘賱 賲丨丿丿 爻賱賮丕賸責 賵賲丕匕丕 賱賵 賰丕賳 丕賱賲丕囟賷 賲鬲睾賷乇丕賸責 賵賲丕匕丕 賱賵 賰丕賳 丕賱夭賲賳 爻賵賮 賷賳鬲賴賷 亘毓囟 亘囟毓 丿賯丕卅賯責 賲丕賱毓賱丕賯丞 亘賷賳 賲丕 賳賯賵賲 亘賴 ( 丕賱兀丨丿丕孬 ) 賵丕賱夭賲賳責 ..
賱丕 賲毓丕丿賱丕鬲 賮賷 賴匕丕 丕賱毓賲賱 賵賱丕 爻賷賵賮 賱賷夭乇 賵賱丕 丌賱丕賱丕鬲 鬲鬲賳賯賱 賮賷 丕賱夭賲賳 .. 賴賳丕 賮賯胤 丕賱賰孬賷乇 丕賱賰孬賷乇 賲賳 丕賱氐賵賮賷賴 .. 賵丕賱賰孬賷乇 丕賱賰孬賷乇 賲賳 丕賱丌賱賲 丕賱賵噩賵丿賷 ... 賵丕賱賰孬賷乇 丕賱賰孬賷乇 賲賳 丕賱卮噩賳 賵丕賱噩賲丕賱 賵丕賱賱匕丞 賵丕賱胤乇亘 ..
***
丨氐賱鬲 毓賱賶 賳爻禺丞 賲賳 賴匕丕 丕賱毓賲賱 賲賳匕 禺賲爻 爻賳賵丕鬲, 賵賲賳匕 匕賱賰 丕賱丨賷賳 賵兀賳丕 兀毓賷丿
賯乇丕亍鬲賴 賲乇賴 賰賱 毓丕賲.
賰鬲丕亘 兀丨賱丕賲 丕賷賳卮鬲丕賷賳 毓亘丕乇丞 毓賳 孬賱丕孬賷賳 賮氐賱丕賸 賯氐賷乇丕賸, 賰賱 賮氐賱 賴賵 賲夭賷噩 賲賳 丕賱賯氐丞 賵丕賱賮賱爻賮丞 賵丕賱毓賱賲 賵丕賱鬲氐賵賮 亘禺氐賵氐 丕賱夭賲賳.
賰賱 賮氐賱 賷丨賰賷 賯氐丞 毓丕賱賲 賲禺鬲賱賮 賱賱夭賲賳 賮賷賴 賯氐丞 賲禺鬲賱賮賴 .. 賮賷 兀丨丿 丕賱毓賵丕賱賲 賷賰賵賳 丕賱夭賲賳 丿丕卅乇賷 賷賰乇乇 賳賮爻賴 廿賱丕 賲丕 賱丕賳賴丕賷丞 .. 賵賮賷 毓丕賱賲 兀禺乇 賷賰賵賳 丕賱夭賲賳 毓亘丕乇丞 毓賳 孬賱丕孬 丕亘毓丕丿 賮賷 賰賱 亘毓丿 賷賰賵賳 賱賰賱 卮禺氐 賯氐丞 賲禺鬲賱賮賴 .. 賵賮賷 毓丕賱賲 兀禺乇 賱丕 賷賵噩丿 賲爻鬲賯亘賱 .. 賵賮賷 毓丕賱賲 兀禺乇 賷鬲睾賷乇 丕賱賲丕囟賷 .. 賵賮賷 毓丕賱賲 兀禺乇 丕賱夭賲賳 賷爻亘賯 丕賱賲丕囟賷 丕賱丨丕囟乇 .. 賵賮賷 毓丕賱賲 丕禺乇 賷賳賮匕 丕賱夭賲賳 .. 賵丕賮賰丕乇 賲噩賳賵賳丞 兀禺乇賶
賱丕 鬲爻鬲胤賷毓 鬲氐賳賷賮 賴匕丕 丕賱毓賲賱 鬲丨鬲 鬲氐賳賷賮 丕賱禺賷丕賱 丕賱毓賱賲賷 廿胤賱丕賯丕賸 賱丕 賲賳 亘毓賷丿 賵賱丕 賲賳 賯乇賷亘 ( 乇睾賲 兀賳 卮賰賱賴 賷亘丿賵 賰匕賱賰 ) 賴匕丕 丕賱毓賲賱 賮賷 丕賱丨賯賷賯丞 毓賲賱 氐賵賮賷 賵噩賵丿賷 廿賳爻丕賳賷 亘丨鬲 .. 賮賷 賰賱 賵丕丨丿丞 賲賳 賴匕賴 丕賱賯氐氐 丕賱賲噩賳賵賳丞 賷鬲禺賷賱 賱丕賷鬲賲丕賳 卮賰賱丕賸 噩丿賷丿丕賸 賱賱夭賲賳 .. 孬賲 賷鬲禺賷賱 毓丕賱賲丕賸 賷丨賰賲賴 賴匕丕 丕賱卮賰賱 .. 亘毓丿 匕賱賰 賷賳賯賱 賱賳丕 氐賵乇丞 賲賳 兀賮賰丕乇 賵賲卮丕毓乇 賵賮賱爻賮丕鬲 丕賱賳丕爻 賮賷 賴匕丕 丕賱毓丕賱賲 .. 賰賷賮 賷鬲氐乇賮 賵賷賮賰乇 賵賷卮毓乇 丕賱賳丕爻 賱賵 賰丕賳 丕賱夭賲賳 賱丕 賷賳鬲賴賷責 賵賰賷賮 賷鬲氐乇賮賵賳 賱賵 賰丕賳 丕賱賲爻鬲賯亘賱 賲丨丿丿 爻賱賮丕賸責 賵賲丕匕丕 賱賵 賰丕賳 丕賱賲丕囟賷 賲鬲睾賷乇丕賸責 賵賲丕匕丕 賱賵 賰丕賳 丕賱夭賲賳 爻賵賮 賷賳鬲賴賷 亘毓囟 亘囟毓 丿賯丕卅賯責 賲丕賱毓賱丕賯丞 亘賷賳 賲丕 賳賯賵賲 亘賴 ( 丕賱兀丨丿丕孬 ) 賵丕賱夭賲賳責 ..
賱丕 賲毓丕丿賱丕鬲 賮賷 賴匕丕 丕賱毓賲賱 賵賱丕 爻賷賵賮 賱賷夭乇 賵賱丕 丌賱丕賱丕鬲 鬲鬲賳賯賱 賮賷 丕賱夭賲賳 .. 賴賳丕 賮賯胤 丕賱賰孬賷乇 丕賱賰孬賷乇 賲賳 丕賱氐賵賮賷賴 .. 賵丕賱賰孬賷乇 丕賱賰孬賷乇 賲賳 丕賱丌賱賲 丕賱賵噩賵丿賷 ... 賵丕賱賰孬賷乇 丕賱賰孬賷乇 賲賳 丕賱卮噩賳 賵丕賱噩賲丕賱 賵丕賱賱匕丞 賵丕賱胤乇亘 ..
January 14, 2018
This beautiful book is a gift from my dear, sweet friend, Rochelle. 鉂わ笍 Thank you, sweetheart.
This is a very unusual book, not really about Einstein at all, but perhaps he had some of these "dreams". Each chapter is an imagining of a possible, unusual perception of time, and how that might affect the people of Berne.
Some of the chapters are quite wonderful, others just strange, most are poignant in some way.
Chapter "8 May 1905" - the end of the world...
Exquisite. In a world with only one day left, we are finally all equal.
Chapter "10 May 1905" - stuck in the past...
The tragedy of this ["stuck in the past"] world is that no one is happy whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.
This is a very unusual book, not really about Einstein at all, but perhaps he had some of these "dreams". Each chapter is an imagining of a possible, unusual perception of time, and how that might affect the people of Berne.
Some of the chapters are quite wonderful, others just strange, most are poignant in some way.
Chapter "8 May 1905" - the end of the world...
Exquisite. In a world with only one day left, we are finally all equal.
Chapter "10 May 1905" - stuck in the past...
The tragedy of this ["stuck in the past"] world is that no one is happy whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.
October 5, 2017
Una dintre cele mai frumoase, inteligente 艧i sensibile c膬r牛i citite anul 膬sta.
E o carte ce te pune pe g芒nduri, te face s膬 sim牛i 艧i s膬 (re)cuno艧ti lucrurile 卯ntr-o alt膬 lumin膬. Totul prin joaca de-a timpul, de-a "ce-ar fi dac膬 ar fi" timpul-inel, sau fluviu, sau arbore... Pentru c膬 nu 艧tim ce e timpul. Sau cum e. Sau dac膬 e. Iar ipotezele autorului, limpezi 艧i delicate precum stampele japoneze, umplu cititorul de mirare 艧i 卯nc芒ntare:
"Tragedia acestei lumi este c膬 nimeni nu este fericit, lipit 卯ntr-un timp al durerii sau al bucuriei. Tragedia acestei lumi este c膬 to牛i sunt singuri. C膬ci o via牛膬 din trecut nu poate fi 卯mp膬r牛it膬 cu prezentul. Oricine se lipe艧te 卯n timp, se lipe艧te singur."
"Dar ce este trecutul? Ar putea fi... fermitatea trecutului este oare doar iluzie? Ar putea fi trecutul un caleidoscop, un model de imagini care se modific膬 odat膬 cu fiecare perturbare a unei adieri, a unui r芒s, a unui g芒nd? Iar dac膬 schimbarea este pretutindeni, cum s膬 艧tii acest lucru?"
"脦n timp, exist膬 o infinitate de lumi. Unii l膬muresc deciziile, afirm芒nd c膬 se vor 卯nt芒mpla toate deciziile posibile. 脦ntr-o astfel de lume, cum ar putea fi cineva r膬spunz膬tor de ac牛iunile sale? Al牛ii afirm膬 c膬 fiecare decizie trebuie g芒ndit膬 艧i respectat膬, c膬 f膬r膬 fermitate ar fi haos. Asemenea oameni sunt mul牛umi牛i s膬 tr膬iasc膬 卯n lumi contradictorii, at芒ta timp c芒t 艧tiu ra牛iunea fiec膬reia."
Pe scurt: sper s膬 ave牛i timp s膬 citi牛i aceast膬 minun膬牛ie. Orice fel de timp: inel, fluviu, arbore, 牛es膬tur膬, iluzie...
E o carte ce te pune pe g芒nduri, te face s膬 sim牛i 艧i s膬 (re)cuno艧ti lucrurile 卯ntr-o alt膬 lumin膬. Totul prin joaca de-a timpul, de-a "ce-ar fi dac膬 ar fi" timpul-inel, sau fluviu, sau arbore... Pentru c膬 nu 艧tim ce e timpul. Sau cum e. Sau dac膬 e. Iar ipotezele autorului, limpezi 艧i delicate precum stampele japoneze, umplu cititorul de mirare 艧i 卯nc芒ntare:
"Tragedia acestei lumi este c膬 nimeni nu este fericit, lipit 卯ntr-un timp al durerii sau al bucuriei. Tragedia acestei lumi este c膬 to牛i sunt singuri. C膬ci o via牛膬 din trecut nu poate fi 卯mp膬r牛it膬 cu prezentul. Oricine se lipe艧te 卯n timp, se lipe艧te singur."
"Dar ce este trecutul? Ar putea fi... fermitatea trecutului este oare doar iluzie? Ar putea fi trecutul un caleidoscop, un model de imagini care se modific膬 odat膬 cu fiecare perturbare a unei adieri, a unui r芒s, a unui g芒nd? Iar dac膬 schimbarea este pretutindeni, cum s膬 艧tii acest lucru?"
"脦n timp, exist膬 o infinitate de lumi. Unii l膬muresc deciziile, afirm芒nd c膬 se vor 卯nt芒mpla toate deciziile posibile. 脦ntr-o astfel de lume, cum ar putea fi cineva r膬spunz膬tor de ac牛iunile sale? Al牛ii afirm膬 c膬 fiecare decizie trebuie g芒ndit膬 艧i respectat膬, c膬 f膬r膬 fermitate ar fi haos. Asemenea oameni sunt mul牛umi牛i s膬 tr膬iasc膬 卯n lumi contradictorii, at芒ta timp c芒t 艧tiu ra牛iunea fiec膬reia."
Pe scurt: sper s膬 ave牛i timp s膬 citi牛i aceast膬 minun膬牛ie. Orice fel de timp: inel, fluviu, arbore, 牛es膬tur膬, iluzie...
May 5, 2019
讴鬲丕亘 讴賵趩讴 夭蹖亘丕蹖蹖 丕爻鬲 ..丿乇亘丕乇賴 夭賲丕賳..鬲讴乇丕乇乇賳丿诏蹖 丿乇夭賲丕賳賴丕蹖 賲禺鬲賱賮 ..亘乇丿丕卮鬲賴丕 丕夭夭賲丕賳
鬲乇噩賲賴 賲鬲賵爻胤 丕爻鬲
毓丕丿鬲 賵禺丕胤乇賴 卮賵乇毓卮賯 乇丕囟毓蹖賮 賲蹖讴賳丿.亘丿賵賳 禺丕胤乇賴 賴乇卮亘 丕賵賱蹖賳 卮亘 丕爻鬲 賴乇氐亘丨 丕賵賱蹖賳 氐亘丨 貙 賴乇亘賵爻賴 賵賴乇賳賵丕夭卮 丕賵賱蹖賳 賴丕 賴爻鬲賳丿...
鬲乇噩賲賴 賲鬲賵爻胤 丕爻鬲
毓丕丿鬲 賵禺丕胤乇賴 卮賵乇毓卮賯 乇丕囟毓蹖賮 賲蹖讴賳丿.亘丿賵賳 禺丕胤乇賴 賴乇卮亘 丕賵賱蹖賳 卮亘 丕爻鬲 賴乇氐亘丨 丕賵賱蹖賳 氐亘丨 貙 賴乇亘賵爻賴 賵賴乇賳賵丕夭卮 丕賵賱蹖賳 賴丕 賴爻鬲賳丿...
October 16, 2021
Nothing short of amazing.
Alan Lightman really shows his expertise in the fields of physics and the philosophy of science, but also psychology as well as the social sciences.
He writes like a poet. More specifically, his descriptions read like poetry. It evokes emotions and paints such palpable images. A man's seemingly ordinary contemplation as he waits for a customer to arrive easily becomes twenty pages of un-putdownable picturesque prose from Lightman. He uses his writing to evoke emotions and present an event/feeling/situation without ever actually mentioning that event/feeling/situation. This is something all good writers do, a higher level of the most necessary "show rather than tell". But Alan Lightman does it with a rarely found elegance.
Furthermore, he has an incredible insight into the human psyche; but more importantly the ability to convert those insights into readable words; vignettes that force readers to think; that possess philosophical questions from angled not previously considered.
Add to this his scholarship in astronomy, astrophysics, humanities, philosophy of science, and physics (he is currently Professor of the Practice of the Humanities at Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and you have this prolific writer with a very unique talent of bridging the gap between the hard and soft sciences. No wonder his books are a success.
"Einstein's Dreams" consists of various scenarios, many of which are not fantastical at all. They are, on the surface, theoretical. However, further research shows that they might very well be based on reality- depending on your belief and understanding of quantum physics, philosophy, and relativity. Many of the scenarios are similar, many are the same stated differently. I have marked my favorites; the most fascinating; the ones that made me think the most, whether it be a good or bad possibility. The book actually begins with Einstein preparing to turn in his theory of time at the patent office where he works in 1905. Each of these scenarios are actually written with dates; each is a dream Einstein has. There are five chapters in which Lightman writes a little anecdote or vignette featuring Einstein, the prologue, three interludes, and an epilogue. The interludes are accompanied by an illustration; however minimal (three total), I have always been partial to illustrations in adult novels. They are fun stories, illustrating how overworked Einstein was, how his friend wonders why he ever got married in the first place, seeing how little attention he pays to her, married to his research. In the epilogue, he completes his theory of time.
>>>> Prologue
Time is like a flow of water, occasionally displaced; people that are sent back in time hide in the shadows, afraid to be responsible for changing history; such individuals from the future can be found in every village and every town, they are left alone and pitied.
**** At every point of decision, the world splits into three worlds, each with the same people but with different dates for those people; in time there are an infinity of worlds. Some make light of this isn't, arguing that all possible decisions will a car, so how could one be responsible for his actions?
**** In this world, there are two times. Mechanical and Body. The first is unyielding, predetermined, the latter makes up its mind as it goes along. One decides how to live their lives according to this. The former is always watching the dial; they look at their watched to tell them when it is time to eat, when to have sex; the body is a machine, a thing to be ordered, not obeyed. The latter laughs at the notion, for they know that time is inconsistent, rushing forward when they are with loved ones, but slowing down when they are taking their child to the emergency room. Thus, they listen to their moods and desires.
**** Everyone lives in the mountains here because at some time in the past scientist discovered that time flows more slowly the further from the center of the Earth. Life is run high above and everyone most avoid venturing down. No sitting. Height is status.
Time is absolute here. A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation. For a while the movements of individuals are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable.
Cause and effect are erratic. The two can be mixed, or unrelated. It is a world of sincerity, as everything only has one meaning, for the present. Living in the moment.
In this world, time does pass, but little happens. As little happens from year to year, little happens from month to month, day today. If time and the passage of events are the same, then time barely moves at all. If time and events are not the same, then it is only people who barely move. If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly. If a person hold ambitions, he suffers knowingly, but very slowly.
>>>> Interlude
**** The date for the end of the world is known as fact. Everything shuts down beginning a year before the date This results in a liberation and bliss, for if the end is inevitable, why not celebrate and love? In the last second, everyone is together in harmony.
Different towns are stuck in different periods of time. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone, for a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.
The passage of time equates to increasing order. People have fun with abandon, knowing that time will restore order. Lipsticks and brushes and letters may be tough and the purses with the satisfaction that they will sort themselves out automatically. Gardens may never be tended, desks become neat by the end of the day.
**** Time stands still. As a traveler approaches this place from any direction, he moves more and more slowly. Who would make this program is to the center of time? Parents with children, and lovers. Pure happiness occurs as children are forever young and love lasts forever. Sadly, as one returns to the outer world, children grow rapidly, forget the centuries long embrace from their parents, and lovers return to find their friends long gone. Would you rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen?
**** No time. Only images. I want to copy this entire chapter, which was beautifully written. Pages 57 to 60. A short excerpt: "A young boy sitting in an empty auditorium, his heart racing as if he were on stage. Footprints in snow on a winter island. A leaf on the ground in Autumn, red and gold and brown, delicate. A stall of peppers on Marktgasse, the yellow and green and red. A woman lying on her couch with wet hair, holding the hand of a man she will never see again. A train with red cars, on a great bridge, with graceful arches, the river underneath, tiny dots that are houses in the distance. blue Shadows of trees in a full moon. Roses cut and adrift on the river beneath the bridge, with a chateau rising. Red hair of a lover, wild, mysterious, promising. The purple petals of an iris, held by a young woman. The first kiss. Planets caught in space, oceans, silent. A yellow brush."
There are no memories. When it is time to return to the families at the end of the day, each person consults his address book to learn where he lives. With time, each person's Book of Life thickens until it cannot be read in its entirety. The elderly might read the early pages, to know themselves when they were young, or they may read the end to know themselves in later years. Others have decided not to read at all. They have decided that it matters if you are a good or bad, richer or poorer, educated or uneducated, for no one will remember. They look you in the eye.
Time flows unevenly; individuals receive occasional glimpses of the future. Few risks are taken. Those who have seen the future do not need to take risks, and those who have not yet seem to be sure to wait for their vision without taking risks.
All is in motion. Time is slower for those in motion. Time is money. Thus, like the scenario in which height equates to status, the faster and more one moves, the better. Unfortunately, seeing others equals seeing the other gain time. So no more looking at others?
>>>> Interlude
Time moves backward. A couple waits for the infatuation honeymoon period while they deal with divorce. At a funeral, one gladly waits for the good times.
**** Everyone only lives one day. One will only ever see one season. By the end of the day, one is already alone. Parents have died by noon, friends have moved. Life is divided, unknown with no witnesses.
Time is a sense, dependent on the prior history of the seer. Does time really exist outside perception? Who can say if an event happens with or without cause, in the past or the future, or happened at all?
****Immortality. There are The Laters and The Nows. With all the time in the world, would you procrastinate or would you as a result feel you need to do even more? Some commit suicide. I found it nice that They were given this option at all. True immortality, in my opinion, would come with the cost of the inability to die. And I would choose mortality over immortality. I believe we cannot truly appreciate the light without the darkness to understand the difference.
Time is a quality, not quantity. It cannot be measured. There are no clocks, calendars, definite appointments. Events occur in accordance and in relation to other events. One will see a woman waiting at an intersection for who knows how long for her lover.
The is no future. It is not possible to imagine the future. Each kiss is the last kiss, each laugh the last laugh. One cannot imagine consequences. Some are paralyzed by fear, others the opposite. One sits at a caf茅, marveling at how the world ends in rain, since every moment is the end. He is not waiting for the rain to end, because waiting does not exist. Twenty minutes later, he Marvel's at how the world ends in sunlight.
**** Time is a visible dimension. I guess this is omniscient time travel. One can look one way a see marriages, divorces; the other, children, deaths. One may choose to enter different time dimensions. I would find this highly torturous. One could step into the uncertainty of the future or stay stable, but once you see your future, everything changes. One might get lost in time, wonder at what you lost.
Time is intermittent. At restarts of time, the pieces can sometimes not fit together perfectly. For example, a couple meet. In the middle of their conversation, time is restarted, unbeknownst to either. He reads something on her face that makes him think she is no longer in love with him, ending things forever.
>>>> Interlude
**** The Temple of Time. Only one Great Clock in the world, which people pilgrimage to from all over to pay their respects. This is basically about how we can be a slave to time; that we want it but we hate the power it has over our lives at the same time. At any given time, thousands are in queue; they stand secretly hating, for "They must watch measured that which should not be measured. They have been trapped their own inventiveness and audacity. And they must pay with their lives."
Time is a local phenomenon. Different location, different speed. The time it takes to fall in love in one place could equate to one second in another. One drop of water, a girl becomes a woman. Thus results in much variety. Isolation. Would you want to travel to another time zone? This scenario is similar to the one where time stands still in one place.
**** Time is predetermined; there is no freedom of choice. Therefore, is there no right or wrong? No person is responsible for their actions. Everyone is merely a spectator. I wonder, how would I feel in this world? On the one hand, I feel I would hate it. On the other, maybe I would feel at least a little good, relieved, literally, of the burden of choice?
Countless copies. One feels all the others like him. Which reputation is his own, his true identity, his future? Should he leave his wife? What comfort has he given him? His thoughts loop back. Should he leave his wife? Confusion.
A shifting past. How would we know what the true past is; why would we care if it could randomly change?
One can trap time, which is a nightingale. This is difficult to do, a rare occurrence. When one does, the catchers delight in the moment now frozen; they savor the precise placement of family and friends and facial expressions, but soon discover that the nightingale expires. Essentially, the ability to freeze time.
>>>> Epilogue
Since this was so similar to Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities", but I actually liked this far more, I think it is noteworthy to share more praise I had for Alan Lightman's after reading both: /review/show...
Alan Lightman really shows his expertise in the fields of physics and the philosophy of science, but also psychology as well as the social sciences.
He writes like a poet. More specifically, his descriptions read like poetry. It evokes emotions and paints such palpable images. A man's seemingly ordinary contemplation as he waits for a customer to arrive easily becomes twenty pages of un-putdownable picturesque prose from Lightman. He uses his writing to evoke emotions and present an event/feeling/situation without ever actually mentioning that event/feeling/situation. This is something all good writers do, a higher level of the most necessary "show rather than tell". But Alan Lightman does it with a rarely found elegance.
Furthermore, he has an incredible insight into the human psyche; but more importantly the ability to convert those insights into readable words; vignettes that force readers to think; that possess philosophical questions from angled not previously considered.
Add to this his scholarship in astronomy, astrophysics, humanities, philosophy of science, and physics (he is currently Professor of the Practice of the Humanities at Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and you have this prolific writer with a very unique talent of bridging the gap between the hard and soft sciences. No wonder his books are a success.
"Einstein's Dreams" consists of various scenarios, many of which are not fantastical at all. They are, on the surface, theoretical. However, further research shows that they might very well be based on reality- depending on your belief and understanding of quantum physics, philosophy, and relativity. Many of the scenarios are similar, many are the same stated differently. I have marked my favorites; the most fascinating; the ones that made me think the most, whether it be a good or bad possibility. The book actually begins with Einstein preparing to turn in his theory of time at the patent office where he works in 1905. Each of these scenarios are actually written with dates; each is a dream Einstein has. There are five chapters in which Lightman writes a little anecdote or vignette featuring Einstein, the prologue, three interludes, and an epilogue. The interludes are accompanied by an illustration; however minimal (three total), I have always been partial to illustrations in adult novels. They are fun stories, illustrating how overworked Einstein was, how his friend wonders why he ever got married in the first place, seeing how little attention he pays to her, married to his research. In the epilogue, he completes his theory of time.
>>>> Prologue
Time is like a flow of water, occasionally displaced; people that are sent back in time hide in the shadows, afraid to be responsible for changing history; such individuals from the future can be found in every village and every town, they are left alone and pitied.
**** At every point of decision, the world splits into three worlds, each with the same people but with different dates for those people; in time there are an infinity of worlds. Some make light of this isn't, arguing that all possible decisions will a car, so how could one be responsible for his actions?
**** In this world, there are two times. Mechanical and Body. The first is unyielding, predetermined, the latter makes up its mind as it goes along. One decides how to live their lives according to this. The former is always watching the dial; they look at their watched to tell them when it is time to eat, when to have sex; the body is a machine, a thing to be ordered, not obeyed. The latter laughs at the notion, for they know that time is inconsistent, rushing forward when they are with loved ones, but slowing down when they are taking their child to the emergency room. Thus, they listen to their moods and desires.
**** Everyone lives in the mountains here because at some time in the past scientist discovered that time flows more slowly the further from the center of the Earth. Life is run high above and everyone most avoid venturing down. No sitting. Height is status.
Time is absolute here. A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation. For a while the movements of individuals are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable.
Cause and effect are erratic. The two can be mixed, or unrelated. It is a world of sincerity, as everything only has one meaning, for the present. Living in the moment.
In this world, time does pass, but little happens. As little happens from year to year, little happens from month to month, day today. If time and the passage of events are the same, then time barely moves at all. If time and events are not the same, then it is only people who barely move. If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly. If a person hold ambitions, he suffers knowingly, but very slowly.
>>>> Interlude
**** The date for the end of the world is known as fact. Everything shuts down beginning a year before the date This results in a liberation and bliss, for if the end is inevitable, why not celebrate and love? In the last second, everyone is together in harmony.
Different towns are stuck in different periods of time. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone, for a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.
The passage of time equates to increasing order. People have fun with abandon, knowing that time will restore order. Lipsticks and brushes and letters may be tough and the purses with the satisfaction that they will sort themselves out automatically. Gardens may never be tended, desks become neat by the end of the day.
**** Time stands still. As a traveler approaches this place from any direction, he moves more and more slowly. Who would make this program is to the center of time? Parents with children, and lovers. Pure happiness occurs as children are forever young and love lasts forever. Sadly, as one returns to the outer world, children grow rapidly, forget the centuries long embrace from their parents, and lovers return to find their friends long gone. Would you rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen?
**** No time. Only images. I want to copy this entire chapter, which was beautifully written. Pages 57 to 60. A short excerpt: "A young boy sitting in an empty auditorium, his heart racing as if he were on stage. Footprints in snow on a winter island. A leaf on the ground in Autumn, red and gold and brown, delicate. A stall of peppers on Marktgasse, the yellow and green and red. A woman lying on her couch with wet hair, holding the hand of a man she will never see again. A train with red cars, on a great bridge, with graceful arches, the river underneath, tiny dots that are houses in the distance. blue Shadows of trees in a full moon. Roses cut and adrift on the river beneath the bridge, with a chateau rising. Red hair of a lover, wild, mysterious, promising. The purple petals of an iris, held by a young woman. The first kiss. Planets caught in space, oceans, silent. A yellow brush."
There are no memories. When it is time to return to the families at the end of the day, each person consults his address book to learn where he lives. With time, each person's Book of Life thickens until it cannot be read in its entirety. The elderly might read the early pages, to know themselves when they were young, or they may read the end to know themselves in later years. Others have decided not to read at all. They have decided that it matters if you are a good or bad, richer or poorer, educated or uneducated, for no one will remember. They look you in the eye.
Time flows unevenly; individuals receive occasional glimpses of the future. Few risks are taken. Those who have seen the future do not need to take risks, and those who have not yet seem to be sure to wait for their vision without taking risks.
All is in motion. Time is slower for those in motion. Time is money. Thus, like the scenario in which height equates to status, the faster and more one moves, the better. Unfortunately, seeing others equals seeing the other gain time. So no more looking at others?
>>>> Interlude
Time moves backward. A couple waits for the infatuation honeymoon period while they deal with divorce. At a funeral, one gladly waits for the good times.
**** Everyone only lives one day. One will only ever see one season. By the end of the day, one is already alone. Parents have died by noon, friends have moved. Life is divided, unknown with no witnesses.
Time is a sense, dependent on the prior history of the seer. Does time really exist outside perception? Who can say if an event happens with or without cause, in the past or the future, or happened at all?
****Immortality. There are The Laters and The Nows. With all the time in the world, would you procrastinate or would you as a result feel you need to do even more? Some commit suicide. I found it nice that They were given this option at all. True immortality, in my opinion, would come with the cost of the inability to die. And I would choose mortality over immortality. I believe we cannot truly appreciate the light without the darkness to understand the difference.
Time is a quality, not quantity. It cannot be measured. There are no clocks, calendars, definite appointments. Events occur in accordance and in relation to other events. One will see a woman waiting at an intersection for who knows how long for her lover.
The is no future. It is not possible to imagine the future. Each kiss is the last kiss, each laugh the last laugh. One cannot imagine consequences. Some are paralyzed by fear, others the opposite. One sits at a caf茅, marveling at how the world ends in rain, since every moment is the end. He is not waiting for the rain to end, because waiting does not exist. Twenty minutes later, he Marvel's at how the world ends in sunlight.
**** Time is a visible dimension. I guess this is omniscient time travel. One can look one way a see marriages, divorces; the other, children, deaths. One may choose to enter different time dimensions. I would find this highly torturous. One could step into the uncertainty of the future or stay stable, but once you see your future, everything changes. One might get lost in time, wonder at what you lost.
Time is intermittent. At restarts of time, the pieces can sometimes not fit together perfectly. For example, a couple meet. In the middle of their conversation, time is restarted, unbeknownst to either. He reads something on her face that makes him think she is no longer in love with him, ending things forever.
>>>> Interlude
**** The Temple of Time. Only one Great Clock in the world, which people pilgrimage to from all over to pay their respects. This is basically about how we can be a slave to time; that we want it but we hate the power it has over our lives at the same time. At any given time, thousands are in queue; they stand secretly hating, for "They must watch measured that which should not be measured. They have been trapped their own inventiveness and audacity. And they must pay with their lives."
Time is a local phenomenon. Different location, different speed. The time it takes to fall in love in one place could equate to one second in another. One drop of water, a girl becomes a woman. Thus results in much variety. Isolation. Would you want to travel to another time zone? This scenario is similar to the one where time stands still in one place.
**** Time is predetermined; there is no freedom of choice. Therefore, is there no right or wrong? No person is responsible for their actions. Everyone is merely a spectator. I wonder, how would I feel in this world? On the one hand, I feel I would hate it. On the other, maybe I would feel at least a little good, relieved, literally, of the burden of choice?
Countless copies. One feels all the others like him. Which reputation is his own, his true identity, his future? Should he leave his wife? What comfort has he given him? His thoughts loop back. Should he leave his wife? Confusion.
A shifting past. How would we know what the true past is; why would we care if it could randomly change?
One can trap time, which is a nightingale. This is difficult to do, a rare occurrence. When one does, the catchers delight in the moment now frozen; they savor the precise placement of family and friends and facial expressions, but soon discover that the nightingale expires. Essentially, the ability to freeze time.
>>>> Epilogue
Since this was so similar to Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities", but I actually liked this far more, I think it is noteworthy to share more praise I had for Alan Lightman's after reading both: /review/show...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 16, 2016
Scientists are brilliant writers. Their ideas, the coherence of phrases, the flowing writing, the logic, the meaning behind the allegories have no match in literature. And when the book is mostly philosophical but based on a physics component, is even more outstanding.
And this book is all that. It is not sci-fi or scientific, as the title may mislead and it has no plot whatsoever. It is a book about you, me, us and humanity鈥檚 most fearful enemy: Time.
Is time really flowing only onward? Nobody knows for sure even today. What if time could alter its structure: going backwards, having three dimensions, being a quality instead of a quantity, standing still, moving on fast-forward, being multiple at the same time or even being a nightingale?
It is a wonderful, wonderful book. As Liu Cixin said in his postscript of :
You鈥檒l find yourself within these pages and it you鈥檒l be perceiving time very differently from now on鈥�
And this book is all that. It is not sci-fi or scientific, as the title may mislead and it has no plot whatsoever. It is a book about you, me, us and humanity鈥檚 most fearful enemy: Time.
Is time really flowing only onward? Nobody knows for sure even today. What if time could alter its structure: going backwards, having three dimensions, being a quality instead of a quantity, standing still, moving on fast-forward, being multiple at the same time or even being a nightingale?
鈥淸鈥each man and each woman desires a bird. Because this flock of nightingales is time. Time flutters and fidgets and hops with these birds. Trap one of these nightingales beneath a bell jar and time stops. The moment is frozen for all people and trees and soil caught within. In truth, these birds are rarely caught. The children, who alone have the speed to catch birds, have no desire to stop time. For the children, time moves too slowly already. They rush from moment to moment, anxious for birthdays and new years, barely able to wait for the rest of their lives. The elderly desperately wish to halt time, but are much too slow and fatigued to entrap any bird. For the elderly, time darts by much too quickly. They yearn to capture a single minute at the breakfast table drinking tea, or a moment when a grandchild is stuck getting out of her costume, or an afternoon when the winter sun reflects off snow and floods the music room with light. But they are too slow. They must watch time jump and fly beyond reach.鈥�All these shapes of time and many more are described here. The nameless characters are mostly the same in each of the 30 mini stories, having their lives lived according to that specific time shape. Or is it the other way around: by how they choose to live gives time shape?
鈥淲ho would fare better in this world of fitful time? Those who have seen the future and live only one life? Or those who have not seen the future and wait to live life? Or those who deny the future and live two lives?鈥�
鈥淲hy such a fixation on speed? Because in this world time passes more slowly for people in motion. Thus everyone travels at high velocity, to gain time.鈥�
It is a wonderful, wonderful book. As Liu Cixin said in his postscript of :
鈥滻鈥檝e always felt that the greatest and most beautiful stories in the history of humanity were not sung by wandering bards or written by playwrights and novelists, but told by science. The stories of science are far more magnificent, grand, involved, profound, thrilling, strange, terrifying, mysterious, and even emotional, compared to the stories told by literature. Only, these wonderful stories are locked in cold equations that most do not know how to read.鈥�
You鈥檒l find yourself within these pages and it you鈥檒l be perceiving time very differently from now on鈥�
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