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Alan Lightman

Einstein's Dreams Kindle Edition

by Alan Lightman (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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

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

Print length

146 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Corsair
Publication date

5 April 2012
File size

1989 KB
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Product description

About the Author

Alan Lightman was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1948, and was educated at Princeton and the California Institute of Technology. He has written for Granta, Harper's, The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books. His highly acclaimed novel GOOD BENITO, about the clash between the absolutes of science and the vagaries of human experience, is also published by Sceptre. He is now professor of science and writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

A joy...It stimulates the intellect. It bridges disciplines by linking intellectual understanding with the kind of relaxing enjoyment to be expected from a good novel (The Economist)

A joy to read. It is a celebration of a world in which time does not march brutally through people's lives, but rather skips and gambols, forever quirky and unpredictable (The Times)

It is at once intellectually provocative and touching and comic and so very beautifully written. Quite frankly I haven't been so excited by a novel, let alone a first novel, for a very long time (Salman Rushdie)

A dazzling first novel...entirely original (The Sunday Times)

Full of zest (Doris Lessing) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Amazon.com Review

If you liked the eerie whimsy of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, Steven Millhauser's Little Kingdoms, or Jorge Luis Borges's Labyrinths, you will love Alan Lightman's ethereal yet down-to-earth book Einstein's Dreams. Lightman teaches physics and writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, helping bridge the light-year-size gap between science and the humanities, the enemy camps C.P. Snow famously called The Two Cultures.

Einstein's Dreams became a bestseller by delighting both scientists and humanists. It is technically a novel. Lightman uses simple, lyrical, and literal details to locate Einstein precisely in a place and time--Berne, Switzerland, spring 1905, when he was a patent clerk privately working on his bizarre, unheard-of theory of relativity. The town he perceives is vividly described, but the waking Einstein is a bit player in this drama.

The book takes flight when Einstein takes to his bed and we share his dreams, 30 little fables about places where time behaves quite differently. In one world, time is circular; in another a man is occasionally plucked from the present and deposited in the past: "He is agonized. For if he makes the slightest alteration in anything, he may destroy the future ... he is forced to witness events without being part of them ... an inert gas, a ghost ... an exile of time." The dreams in which time flows backward are far more sophisticated than the time-tripping scenes in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, though science-fiction fans may yearn for a sustained yarn, which Lightman declines to provide. His purpose is simply to study the different kinds of time in Einstein's mind, each with its own lucid consequences. In their tone and quiet logic, Lightman's fables come off like Bach variations played on an exquisite harpsichord. People live for one day or eternity, and they respond intelligibly to each unique set of circumstances. Raindrops hang in the air in a place of frozen time; in another place everyone knows one year in advance exactly when the world will end, and acts accordingly.

"Consider a world in which cause and effect are erratic," writes Lightman. "Scientists turn reckless and mutter like gamblers who cannot stop betting.... In this world, artists are joyous." In another dream, time slows with altitude, causing rich folks to build stilt homes on mountaintops, seeking eternal youth and scorning the swiftly aging poor folk below. Forgetting eventually how they got there and why they subsist on "all but the most gossamer food," the higher-ups at length "become thin like the air, bony, old before their time."

There is no plot in this small volume--it's more like a poetry collection than a novel. Like Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, it's a mind-stretching meditation by a scientist who's been to the far edge of physics and is back with wilder tales than Marco Polo's. And unlike many admirers of Hawking, readers of Einstein's Dreams have a high probability of actually finishing it.

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

14 April 1905

Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.

For the most part, people do not know they will live their lives over. Traders do not know that they will make the same bargain again and again. Politicians do not know that they will shout from the same lectern an infinite number of times in the cycles of time. Parents treasure the first laugh from their child as if they will not hear it again. Lovers making love the first time undress shyly, show surprise at the supple thigh, the fragile nipple. How would they know that each secret glimpse, each touch, will be repeated again and again and again, exactly as before?

On Marktgasse, it is the same. How could the shopkeepers know that each handmade sweater, each embroidered handkerchief, each chocolate candy, each intricate compass and watch will return to their stalls? At dusk, the shopkeepers go home to their families or drink beer in the taverns, calling happily to friends down the vaulted alleys, caressing each moment as an emerald on temporary consignment. How could they know that nothing is temporary, that all will happen again? No more than an ant crawling round the rim of a crystal chandelier knows that it will return to where it began.

In the hospital on Gerberngasse, a woman says goodbye to her husband. He lies in bed and stares at her emptily. In the last two months, his cancer has spread from his throat to his liver, his pancreas, his brain. His two young children sit on one chair in the corner of the room, frightened to look at their father, his sunken cheeks, the withered skin of an old man. The wife comes to the bed and kisses her husband softly on the forehead, whispers goodbye, and quickly leaves with the children. She is certain that this was the last kiss. How could she know that time will begin again, that she will be born again, will study at the gymnasium again, will show her paintings at the gallery in Zürich, will again meet her husband in the small library in Fribourg, will again go sailing with him in Thun Lake on a warm day in July, will give birth again, that her husband will again work for eight years at the pharmaceutical and come home one evening with a lump in his throat, will again throw up and get weak and end up in this hospital, this room, this bed, this moment. How could she know?

In the world in which time is a circle, every handshake, every kiss, every birth, every word, will be repeated precisely. So too every moment that two friends stop becoming friends, every time that a family is broken because of money, every vicious remark in an argument between spouses, every opportunity denied because of a superior's jealousy, every promise not kept.

And just as all things will be repeated in the future, all things now happening happened a million times before. Some few people in every town, in their dreams, are vaguely aware that all has occurred in the past. These are the people with unhappy lives, and they sense that their misjudgments and wrong deeds and bad luck have all taken place in the previous loop of time. In the dead of night these cursed citizens wrestle with their bedsheets, unable to rest, stricken with the knowledge that they cannot change a single action, a single gesture. Their mistakes will be repeated precisely in this life as in the life before. And it is these double unfortunates who give the only sign that time is a circle. For in each town, late at night, the vacant streets and balconies fill up with their moans.

16 April 1905

In this world, time is like a flow of water, occasionally displaced by a bit of debris, a passing breeze. Now and then, some cosmic disturbance will cause a rivulet of time to turn away from the mainstream, to make connection backstream. When this happens, birds, soil, people caught in the branching tributary find themselves suddenly carried to the past.

Persons who have been transported back in time are easy to identify. They wear dark, indistinct clothing and walk on their toes, trying not to make a single sound, trying not to bend a single blade of grass. For they fear that any change they make in the past could have drastic consequences for the future.

Just now, for example, such a person is crouching in the shadows of the arcade, at no. 19 Kramgasse. An odd place for a traveler from the future, but there she is. Pedestrians pass, stare, and walk on. She huddles in a corner, then quickly creeps across the street and cowers in another darkened spot, at no. 22. She is terrified that she will kick up dust, just as a Peter Klausen is making his way to the apothecary on Spitalgasse this afternoon of 16 April 1905. Klausen is something of a dandy and hates to have his clothes sullied. If dust messes his clothes, he will stop and painstakingly brush them off, regardless of waiting appointments. If Klausen is sufficiently delayed, he may not buy the ointment for his wife, who has been complaining of leg aches for weeks. In that case, Klausen's wife, in a bad humor, may decide not to make the trip to Lake Geneva. And if she does not go to Lake Geneva on 23 June 1905, she will not meet a Catherine d'Épinay walking on the jetty of the east shore and will not introduce Mlle. d'Épinay to her son Richard. In turn, Richard and Catherine will not marry on 17 December 1908, will not give birth to Friedrich on 8 July 1912. Friedrich Klausen will not be father to Hans Klausen on 22 August 1938, and without Hans Klausen the European Union of 1979 will never occur.

The woman from the future, thrust without warning into this time and this place and now attempting to be invisible in her darkened spot at no. 22 Kramgasse, knows the Klausen story and a thousand other stories waiting to unfold, dependent on the births of children, the movement of people in the streets, the songs of birds at certain moments, the precise position of chairs, the wind. She crouches in the shadows and does not return the stares of people. She crouches and waits for the stream of time to carry her back to her own time.

When a traveler from the future must talk, he does not talk but whimpers. He whispers tortured sounds. He is agonized. For if he makes the slightest alteration in anything, he may destroy the future. At the same time, he is forced to witness events without being part of them, without changing them. He envies the people who live in their own time, who can act at will, oblivious of the future, ignorant of the effects of their actions. But he cannot act. He is an inert gas, a ghost, a sheet without soul. He has lost his personhood. He is an exile of time.

Such wretched people from the future can be found in every village and every town, hiding under the eaves of buildings, in basements, under bridges, in deserted fields. They are not questioned about coming events, about future marriages, births, finances, inventions, profits to be made. Instead, they are left alone and pitied.

19 April 1905

It is a cold morning in November and the first snow has fallen. A man in a long leather coat stands on his fourth-floor balcony on Kramgasse overlooking the Zähringer Fountain and the white street below. To the east, he can see the fragile steeple of St. Vincent's Cathedral, to the west, the curved roof of the Zytgloggeturm. But the man is not looking east or west. He is staring down at a tiny red hat left in the snow below, and he is thinking. Should he go to the woman's house in Fribourg? His hands grip the metal balustrade, let go, grip again. Should he visit her? Should he visit her?

He decides not to see her again. She is manipulative and judgmental, and she could make his life miserable. Perhaps she would not be interested in him anyway. So he decides not to see her again. Instead, he keeps to the company of men. He works hard at the pharmaceutical, where he hardly notices the female assistant manager. He goes to the brasserie on Kochergasse in the evenings with his friends and drinks beer, he learns to make fondue. Then, in three years, he meets another woman in a clothing shop in Neuchâtel. She is nice. She makes love to him very very slowly, over a period of months. After a year, she comes to live with him in Berne. They live quietly, take walks together along the Aare, are companions to each other, grow old and contented.

In the second world, the man in the long leather coat decides that he must see the Fribourg woman again. He hardly knows her, she could be manipulative, and her movements hint at volatility, but that way her face softens when she smiles, that laugh, that clever use of words. Yes, he must see her again. He goes to her house in Fribourg, sits on the couch with her, within moments feels his heart pounding, grows weak at the sight of the white of her arms. They make love, loudly and with passion. She persuades him to move to Fribourg. He leaves his job in Berne and begins work at the Fribourg Post Bureau. He burns with his love for her. Every day he comes home at noon. They eat, they make love, they argue, she complains that she needs more money, he pleads with her, she throws pots at him, they make love again, he returns to the Post Bureau. She threatens to leave him, but she does not leave him. He lives for her, and he is happy with his anguish.

In the third world, he also decides that he must see her again. He hardly knows her, she could be manipulative, and her movements hint at volatility, but that smile, that laugh, that clever use of words. Yes, he must see her again. He goes to her house in Fribourg, meets her at the door, has tea with her at her kitchen table. They talk of her work at the library, his job at the pharmaceutical. After an hour, she says that she must leave to help a friend, she says goodbye to him, they shake hands. He travels the thirty kilometers back to Berne, feels empty during the train ride home, goes to his fourth-floor apartment on Kramgasse, stands on the balcony and stares down at the tiny red hat left in the snow.

These three chains of events all indeed happen, simultaneou... --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Book Description

A modern classic, Einstein's Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Inside Flap

Now available: New signed, boxed edition!

An imaginary re-creation of Einstein's discovery of the nature of time, this novel takes us through the young patent clerk's many dreams depicting compelling conceptions of time. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B005RZB6C4
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Corsair (5 April 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1989 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 146 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 140007780X

Best Sellers Rank: #72,226 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #4,612 in Contemporary Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #10,716 in Contemporary Fiction (Books)

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606 ratings

About the author

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Alan Lightman

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Alan 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’s, 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’s 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), and extended meditation on science and religion. 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 “to advance a new generation of women leaders in Southeast Asia.”

Photo by Alan Lightman (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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ragu nathan

Excellent read

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 4 October 2022

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Excellent read. The author takes us through a journey of imaginary snapshots of life in time.very interesting book. A must read

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 13 November 2020

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About the product- The book arrived on time in perfect condition. The text is clear and easy to read.
About the book- Beautiful writing, if you love vignettes, you're almost definitely going to love this book. I cannot recommend it enough.

One person found this helpful

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Pradeep Raghunathan

Fascinating read

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 24 November 2018

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It broadened my horizons. There were many chapters where you could relate with life itself since time has taken different notions then.

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 2 June 2022

I'd say that this book is for those who like physics. The book offers interludes in which Einstein talks with his friend, Besso(?).

The chapters themselves are depictions of dreams. Einstein's dreams. Of course, this is fantasy, as we have no way of knowing what Einstein dreamed about. Yet, they are fascinating - alternative realities, time bending over, and all sorts of stuff woven together in short, independent narratives.

This is mind-bending stuff and is enjoyable, to say the least.

There are some fascinating paragraphs that may help you look at life in a different way.

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 30 October 2019

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Poignant prose.

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 6 February 2016

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I liked the book.

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 19 July 2013

been like a bible for dreamers and makes one fly in past and future.not at all boring on science or maths. just a great read for train or bus journey.excellent book

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Sheena

Dreamy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 2 March 2016

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This is a dreamy book, in fact. It contains many dreamlike worlds, each appearing, existing for a little while, then disappearing like a ship in a misty Turner painting. It is also a thought provoking examination of the nature of time, its relationship with movement and entropy, and its effects on human lives and emotions.

So why have I deducted one star? Because it is more like poetry than a novel. It is beautiful and it is clever, but it doesn't really have a story as such. Reading it was like spending an afternoon daydreaming.

Nevertheless, Einstein's Dreams has been awarded a place on my "read again" shelf, a rare honour. I may edit this review at a later date, when I have read it again, if I find more in it.

One person found this helpful

Sir Furboy

Hard to Get in the UK

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 10 July 2009

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After going to the trouble of importing a copy of this book from America (as it seems to be hard to obtain outside of the US), I was rather disappointed - and perhaps a little clearer as to why its not readily available in the UK!

This book contains a series of dreams of imaginary worlds with a very different conception of time. Each chapter then is a thought experiment - but what I would have liked to see is some theme or character or reason why I should be carried through the thought experiments. There was no binding theme, and thus the book could better have been reduced to a list: Imagine a world where time is like X, Imagine a world where time is like Y and so on.

Maybe a poem on time would have been better than a whole book here.

It was not totally uninteresting, but neither did I feel it greatly profound. reading about Einstein in depth makes you more aware of the profound nature of time. reading popular physics books like "The Elegant Universe" likewise.

Customer

Alright to read once

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 15 April 2020

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Delivery and book state:- (★★★★★ 5 stars)
First of all delivery of book was really quick and all the books I ordered came in a great state and giving 5 stars for seller.

Book review:- (★★ 2 stars )
Collection of dreams (all of them written as diary entries) Einstein had seen while his stay in Berne, Switzerland. Each dream represents a world in reference of time and how it affects lives and emotions of people. Style of writing is very well mannered and clever but after a while this metaphorical references feel pretentious. May be an article of such a kind would have been better than entire book.

Annie Layte

Thought-provoking

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 20 March 2015

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I first read this many years ago when I borrowed it from the library - it really "got inside my head" at the time and I wanted to read it again, so about thirty years after my first encounter with this book, I tracked down the e version for my kindle. It didn't disappoint second time around. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but I found it very thought provoking. It makes you really think about the whole concept of time and wonder how it would affect our behaviour if time behaved differently. If you like this kind of thing, as I do, it is a rivetting read.

5 people found this helpful

El Tel

A delight.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 5 February 2018

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I found this a delightful book to read. You could say the book follows on where JB Priestley started (Man and Time, et al.) all those years ago.
Don't be misled by the name in the title, but the 'dreams' are ideas and different ways of looking at the subject of time. Some you will have come across before, and many will be thought provoking. I suppose you would say that the writer is showing us different perspectives on how we should be using the allocated time we have been given.

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