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Einstein’s Dreams
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.
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.
140 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Alan Lightman
53 books1,210 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’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), an extended meditation on science and religion – 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 “to advance a new generation of women leaders in Southeast Asia.” 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’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), an extended meditation on science and religion – 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 “to advance a new generation of women leaders in Southeast Asia.” He has received the gold medal for humanitarian service from the government of Cambodia.
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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.
—————————————————————————
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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.
—————————————————————————
You can also follow me on
Instagram ID - Dasfill | YouTube Channel ID - Dasfill | YouTube Health Channel ID - Dasfill - Health | YouTube Malayalam Channel ID - Dasfill - Malayalam | Threads ID - Dasfill | Twitter ID - Dasfill1 | Snapchat ID - Dasfill | Facebook ID - Dasfill | TikTok ID - Dasfill1
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.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز هجدهم ماه فوریه سال 1998میلادی
عنوان: رویاهای انیشتن (اینشتین)؛ نوشته: آلن لایتس؛ مترجم: مهتاب مظلومان؛ مشخصات نشر تهران، نشر چشمه؛ 1376، در 112ص؛ موضوع رویاهای انیشتین از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م
ما تنها یک چهره از زمان را میبینیم، ولی شاید به نوعی زمانهای گوناگونی، در دنیای واقعی ما جریان داشته باشد، و این میتواند برهانی باشد، برای بسیاری از شگفتیهای اطراف ما، که نمیتوانیم برای آنها، شرحی قابل پذیرش داشته باشیم؛ «آلن لایتمن»، «اینیشتین» را، در روزهایی خیال میکند، که هنوز به «فرضیه ی زمان»، دست نیافته اند، و هر کدام از فرضیه هایی را، که «اینیشتین» میتوانست خیال کند، حدس زده، و داستانی راجع به آن نوشته است، در داستانها، ساکنان شهر کوچکی در «سوئیس» را، فرض میکند، که آن زمان در دنیایشان جریان دارد، و به این ترتیب چهره های گوناگون زمان را، بازگو میکند؛
در یکی از این دنیاها، زمان همانند یک «دایره» است، که پس از یک دور، تکرار میشود، و این دور، تا بینهایت ادامه دارد؛ پذیرش این فرضیه، میتواند رخدادهایی را، که گاه میاندیشیم: پیشترها برای ما تکرار شده، توجیه میکند؛
در دنیای دیگری، برعکس دنیای پیشین، زمان همانند: یک «رودخانه» جریان دارد، و رو به جلو به پیش میرود؛ حالا اگر، کسی برای اشتباهی، و یا رخدادی، از جریان جدا شود، و به وسیله ی یک جریان انحرافی، به زمان پیشتر برگردد، میتواند آینده را تغییر دهد؛ هر رخداد کوچکی، که این شخص باعث آن شود، میتواند سیر تاریخ را، دیگر (دگرگون) کند؛ این فرضیه، رفتار آدمهای عجیبی را، که از انسانهای دیگر، به شدت میگریزند، و سعی میکنند باعث کوچکترین رویداد، در زندگی دیگران نشوند، توجیه میکند؛ آدمهایی که ما به آنها، بیش از حد مصلحت اندیش میگوییم
در دنیایی دیگر، دو زمان وجود دارد، یکی «مکانیکی»، و دیگری «جسمانی»؛ در زمان مکانیکی، همه چیز یک تعریف مادی دارند، و آدمهایی که در آن زمان زندگی میکنند، در یک دنیای کاملاً برنامه ریزی شده، قرار دارند؛ ولی برعکس، آنهایی که در زمان «جسمانی» زندگی میکنند، به تعریف مادی مسائل کاری ندارند، و هیچ برنامه ریزی ویژه ای نیز ندارند، که به اصطلاح، به آنها آدمهای «بیخیال» میگویند؛ زمان مکانیکی هیچ انعطافی ندارد، و انسان در واقع، در دام آن گرفتار است؛
در دنیای دیگری، هرچه از مرکز زمین دورتر شویم، زمان دیرتر میگذرد، و تأثیر کمتری روی آدمها میگذارد؛ بنابراین مردم کوشش میکنند، در ارتفاعات زندگی کنند، و خانه هاشان را روی پایه های بلند میسازند، تا دیرتر پیر شوند، و بیشتر زندگی کنند
در یک دنیای دیگر: جای گذشته و آینده دیگر میشود؛ نخست نتیجه ی کار رخ میدهد، سپس آن رخداد روی میدهد؛ در این دنیا که هیچ چیز، قابل پیش بینی نیست، میتوان واقعیتر زندگی کرد، زیرا هیچ کاری، نه به خاطر دلایلی در بگذشته، و نه برای نتایجش در آینده است که انجام میشود، بلکه صرفاً برای خود آن کار است، که انجامش میدهیم
در دنیایی دیگر، گذشت زمان، «عامل نظم» است، و هر چیز نامرتبی، به مرور زمان مرتب خواهد شد، و نیازی به سعی: برای ترمیم و مرتب کردن مسائل، نیست
در دنیای دیگری: زمان به صورت «دوایر متحدالمرکزی»، به سوی خارج گسترده است، و در مرکز بیحرکت است؛ در مرکز میتوان لحظه های ابدی ساخت؛ گروهی بر این باورند که بهتر است به مرکز زمان نزدیک نشد، حیات منشأ غم است، و بهتر است زودتر تمام شود، گروهی عکس این فکر میکنند، و ترجیح میدهند از خوشبختی ابدی، لذت ببرند
در دنیای دیگری: «زمان وجود ندارد»، در آنجا تنها تصویرها وجود دارند
در یک دنیایی دیگر: «خاطره» وجود ندار��
و همین گونه صحبت از دنیاهای دیگر، با زمانهای دیگر است، دنیایی که زمان در آن «برعکس» میگذرد
دنیایی که در آن تنها «یک روز زندگی» میکنند
دنیایی که در آن، زمان، «حسی همچو بویایی یا چشایی» است
دنیایی که در آن زندگی بی پایان» است
دنیایی که در آن زمان «کمیت» ندارد، و تنها «کیفیت» دارد
دنیایی که در آن برای زمان، روی «بُعد زمان»، میتوان مختصاتی قائل شد
دنیایی که زمان در آن، یک «حادثه ی محلی» است، و در نتیجه هر شهر، تنهاست
دنیایی که «گذشته» در آن وجود ندارد؛
و در نهایت اینیشتین با بررسی تمام این زمانها، در دنیاهای مختلف، به نظریه ی زمان خود دست مییابند؛ البته که با وجود حجم کم کتاب، نمیتوان آن را سریع خواند، زیرا برای درک هر کدام از این دنیاها به زمان نیاز هست
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 19/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 23/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
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.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز هجدهم ماه فوریه سال 1998میلادی
عنوان: رویاهای انیشتن (اینشتین)؛ نوشته: آلن لایتس؛ مترجم: مهتاب مظلومان؛ مشخصات نشر تهران، نشر چشمه؛ 1376، در 112ص؛ موضوع رویاهای انیشتین از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م
ما تنها یک چهره از زمان را میبینیم، ولی شاید به نوعی زمانهای گوناگونی، در دنیای واقعی ما جریان داشته باشد، و این میتواند برهانی باشد، برای بسیاری از شگفتیهای اطراف ما، که نمیتوانیم برای آنها، شرحی قابل پذیرش داشته باشیم؛ «آلن لایتمن»، «اینیشتین» را، در روزهایی خیال میکند، که هنوز به «فرضیه ی زمان»، دست نیافته اند، و هر کدام از فرضیه هایی را، که «اینیشتین» میتوانست خیال کند، حدس زده، و داستانی راجع به آن نوشته است، در داستانها، ساکنان شهر کوچکی در «سوئیس» را، فرض میکند، که آن زمان در دنیایشان جریان دارد، و به این ترتیب چهره های گوناگون زمان را، بازگو میکند؛
در یکی از این دنیاها، زمان همانند یک «دایره» است، که پس از یک دور، تکرار میشود، و این دور، تا بینهایت ادامه دارد؛ پذیرش این فرضیه، میتواند رخدادهایی را، که گاه میاندیشیم: پیشترها برای ما تکرار شده، توجیه میکند؛
در دنیای دیگری، برعکس دنیای پیشین، زمان همانند: یک «رودخانه» جریان دارد، و رو به جلو به پیش میرود؛ حالا اگر، کسی برای اشتباهی، و یا رخدادی، از جریان جدا شود، و به وسیله ی یک جریان انحرافی، به زمان پیشتر برگردد، میتواند آینده را تغییر دهد؛ هر رخداد کوچکی، که این شخص باعث آن شود، میتواند سیر تاریخ را، دیگر (دگرگون) کند؛ این فرضیه، رفتار آدمهای عجیبی را، که از انسانهای دیگر، به شدت میگریزند، و سعی میکنند باعث کوچکترین رویداد، در زندگی دیگران نشوند، توجیه میکند؛ آدمهایی که ما به آنها، بیش از حد مصلحت اندیش میگوییم
در دنیایی دیگر، دو زمان وجود دارد، یکی «مکانیکی»، و دیگری «جسمانی»؛ در زمان مکانیکی، همه چیز یک تعریف مادی دارند، و آدمهایی که در آن زمان زندگی میکنند، در یک دنیای کاملاً برنامه ریزی شده، قرار دارند؛ ولی برعکس، آنهایی که در زمان «جسمانی» زندگی میکنند، به تعریف مادی مسائل کاری ندارند، و هیچ برنامه ریزی ویژه ای نیز ندارند، که به اصطلاح، به آنها آدمهای «بیخیال» میگویند؛ زمان مکانیکی هیچ انعطافی ندارد، و انسان در واقع، در دام آن گرفتار است؛
در دنیای دیگری، هرچه از مرکز زمین دورتر شویم، زمان دیرتر میگذرد، و تأثیر کمتری روی آدمها میگذارد؛ بنابراین مردم کوشش میکنند، در ارتفاعات زندگی کنند، و خانه هاشان را روی پایه های بلند میسازند، تا دیرتر پیر شوند، و بیشتر زندگی کنند
در یک دنیای دیگر: جای گذشته و آینده دیگر میشود؛ نخست نتیجه ی کار رخ میدهد، سپس آن رخداد روی میدهد؛ در این دنیا که هیچ چیز، قابل پیش بینی نیست، میتوان واقعیتر زندگی کرد، زیرا هیچ کاری، نه به خاطر دلایلی در بگذشته، و نه برای نتایجش در آینده است که انجام میشود، بلکه صرفاً برای خود آن کار است، که انجامش میدهیم
در دنیایی دیگر، گذشت زمان، «عامل نظم» است، و هر چیز نامرتبی، به مرور زمان مرتب خواهد شد، و نیازی به سعی: برای ترمیم و مرتب کردن مسائل، نیست
در دنیای دیگری: زمان به صورت «دوایر متحدالمرکزی»، به سوی خارج گسترده است، و در مرکز بیحرکت است؛ در مرکز میتوان لحظه های ابدی ساخت؛ گروهی بر این باورند که بهتر است به مرکز زمان نزدیک نشد، حیات منشأ غم است، و بهتر است زودتر تمام شود، گروهی عکس این فکر میکنند، و ترجیح میدهند از خوشبختی ابدی، لذت ببرند
در دنیای دیگری: «زمان وجود ندارد»، در آنجا تنها تصویرها وجود دارند
در یک دنیایی دیگر: «خاطره» وجود ندار��
و همین گونه صحبت از دنیاهای دیگر، با زمانهای دیگر است، دنیایی که زمان در آن «برعکس» میگذرد
دنیایی که در آن تنها «یک روز زندگی» میکنند
دنیایی که در آن، زمان، «حسی همچو بویایی یا چشایی» است
دنیایی که در آن زندگی بی پایان» است
دنیایی که در آن زمان «کمیت» ندارد، و تنها «کیفیت» دارد
دنیایی که در آن برای زمان، روی «بُعد زمان»، میتوان مختصاتی قائل شد
دنیایی که زمان در آن، یک «حادثه ی محلی» است، و در نتیجه هر شهر، تنهاست
دنیایی که «گذشته» در آن وجود ندارد؛
و در نهایت اینیشتین با بررسی تمام این زمانها، در دنیاهای مختلف، به نظریه ی زمان خود دست مییابند؛ البته که با وجود حجم کم کتاب، نمیتوان آن را سریع خواند، زیرا برای درک هر کدام از این دنیاها به زمان نیاز هست
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 19/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 23/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
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?
December 4, 2015
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, Tlön, 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 Slaughterhouse Five 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… 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’s 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, Tlön, 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 Slaughterhouse Five 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… 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’s 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’s 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’s fundamental feeling about the world and our place in it. So how we think about time, however unconsciously, matters. We wouldn’t 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’t 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’s 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 ‘out there’ in the cosmos, or ‘in here’ in one’s 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’t exist; to prove that the universe expanded rapidly... or that it didn’t. As if time itself doesn’t 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’s common-sense and philosophical conjectures, including Einstein’s, 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’s 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’s fundamental feeling about the world and our place in it. So how we think about time, however unconsciously, matters. We wouldn’t 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’t 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’s 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 ‘out there’ in the cosmos, or ‘in here’ in one’s 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’t exist; to prove that the universe expanded rapidly... or that it didn’t. As if time itself doesn’t 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’s common-sense and philosophical conjectures, including Einstein’s, and allows each its place. None are incorrect, although some may be better than others depending on intention. Responses on a postcard, please.
Read
November 17, 2016How 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’t exist and clocks were less reliable. You’ve forgotten that, haven’t 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’s 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).
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’clock 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’t 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’clock 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’s 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’s 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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDpT4...
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’t exist and clocks were less reliable. You’ve forgotten that, haven’t 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’s 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).
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’clock 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’t 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’clock 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’s 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’s 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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDpT4...
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 Württemberger, 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 Württemberger, 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 für 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 für 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!
January 17, 2020
Maybe time isn’t 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 Goodreads. They are very grateful for the reviews which merely recapitulate the plot, this is very valuable information. They don’t mind too much if one review is a parody of their book – it’s also useful, they can get an idea of the required style from that. But wait, there’s 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 Goodreads reviews as they do. Of course there could also be a world where the letters s and t don’t exist. (Why would they not exist? To save time! Sorry, ime. Sorry, orry.) In that world this novel is called Einein’ Dream. And the longest river in America is the Miiippi.
January 21, 2023
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
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 ‘butterfly effect’, 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’t 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 ‘couldn’t be worse than what we have now’.
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’t 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 Coke commercial. 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’s 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’d 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 ‘the first time seeing the ocean’. If all of these moments coexist outside of the context of temporal progression, how can there be a ‘first time’? 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 ‘seeing her husband for the first time’--but in this world, as time runs backwards, shouldn’t 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’s and the character’s, 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’s 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’t the kind you bother to share the next morning, because they aren’t particularly fantastical or disturbing or odd, in fact they’re 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’s little stories just aren’t that profound, he’s 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’t have the contemptuous ‘wake up sheeple!’ tone of something like Zeitgeist 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 ‘Philosophy Lite’ 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’s the problem with Lightman, too: he’s just not giving us the really unusual stuff, because he’s watering it down too much, making it bland and palatable when it should be shocking and beggar belief. It’s 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 ‘butterfly effect’, 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’t 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 ‘couldn’t be worse than what we have now’.
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’t 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 Coke commercial. 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’s 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’d 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 ‘the first time seeing the ocean’. If all of these moments coexist outside of the context of temporal progression, how can there be a ‘first time’? 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 ‘seeing her husband for the first time’--but in this world, as time runs backwards, shouldn’t 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’s and the character’s, 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’s 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’t the kind you bother to share the next morning, because they aren’t particularly fantastical or disturbing or odd, in fact they’re 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’s little stories just aren’t that profound, he’s 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’t have the contemptuous ‘wake up sheeple!’ tone of something like Zeitgeist 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 ‘Philosophy Lite’ 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’s the problem with Lightman, too: he’s just not giving us the really unusual stuff, because he’s watering it down too much, making it bland and palatable when it should be shocking and beggar belief. It’s 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
مع مرور الزمن ثمة عدد لا نهائي من العوالمنحن نعيش في الزمن، ومع الزمن، أو كما يُقال نعيش دائمًا في سباق مع الزمن. نراقب حركاته، سكناته، أدنى حركة تصدر منه على شكل أقل من الثانية ونسعى لقياسه بكافة الوسائل والاستفادة منه بكافة الطرق على المستوى العلمي وعلى مستوى الحياة أيضًا وهذا هو الأهم والأكثر شيوعًا.
نحن دومًا ما نحاول انتزاع ساعات/لحظات إضافية عنوة من الزمن، نحاول أن نراوغه رغم أننا نعلم بضعف قدرتنا أمامه، بقدرته على الاستقلال والمضي قدمًا دون الالتفات للحظات التي نريد إيقافها كلحظات السعادة واللحظات التي نقضيها مع من نحب ولحظات العمل ولحظات ما قبل الاختبارات التي نريد أن نوقفها كي نرسم مستقبلنا الخاص بحرية دون السباق مع الزمن وتغيراته.
يخاف بعض البشر من السفر بعيدًا عن لحظة مريحة، يبقون قريبين من موقع واحد مؤقت لا يكادون يعبرون مسافة مألوفة، يركض آخرون بخفة وطيش إلى المستقبل دون استعداد لتعاقب الأحداث العابرة السريعة.علاقتنا مع الزمن لا تعدو كونها علاقة نفعية حينًا أو تنافسية حينًا آخر، لكن في كل الأحوال لا يمكن لها أن تكون علاقة تأملية –نعم نراقبه لكن لا نتأمله والفرق كبير- فقط كي تُخلق علاقة التأمل هذه تحتاج عالم أو فيلسوف أو مجنون، وأعتقد أنه ليس هناك أفضل من آينشتين تجتمع فيه –ليس صفة واحدة من هذه الصفات- بل جميعهن.
الرواية عن "أحلام آينشتين" أو بالأحرى تأملاته عن الزمن وعن شكل الزمن وعلاقته بالعالم الذي نعيش فيه، ومع الكثير من الافتراضات لأشكال مختلفة من الزمن تخلق بدورها عوالم أخرى مختلفة.
هذه الافتراضات تُدرك من خلالها كيف أن الزمن يمكنه التحكم في أشياء أخرى كالذاكرة (شكلها- وجودها- عدم وجودها) والأحداث (كيفية حدوثها- تكرارها- كيفية التعامل معها في كل حالة) القرارات التي نتخذها وتأثير شكل الزمن عليها (فإذا كان عالمنا يمكنه التحكم في الزمن يعني هذا تحكمنا في قرارتنا، تنفيذها ومن ثم الرجوع بالزمن للتراجع عنها والعكس بالعكس) علاقة الزمن بأشياء كثيرة في عالمنا، بكل شيء في عالمنا، عالمنا الذي يبدو أن كل شيء به له علاقة بكل شيء
يستخف البعض بالقرارات قائلين أن جميع القرارات الممكنة ستُتخذ. في عالم كهذا كيف يستطيع المرء أن يكون مسؤولاً عن أفعاله؟ يعتقد آخرون أن جميع القرارات يجب أن تؤخذ بعين الاعتبار ويُلتزم بها وأنه بدون التزام يحل العماء. إن بشرًا كهؤلاء يرضون أن يعيشوا في عوالم متناقضة طالما أنهم يعرفون سبب كل منها.العوالم التي افترضتها الرواية متنوعة للغاية، بعضها يتكرر فيه الزمن مرارًا وتكرارًا والأحداث به كما هي تمامًا (العود الأبدي لنيتشه فيما بعد) وأحيانًا تختلف الأحداث ويكون هناك أكثر من اختيار وفرضية أمامك يمكنك أن تسلكها وعلى أساسها تتقبل كل الأحداث التي ستنتج عنها.
هناك عالم بزمن معكوس (من الموت إلى الشيخوخة إلى الشباب إلى الطفولة إلى الولادة) هناك عالم بزمن من يوم واحد (هذا جيد للمتشائمين أمثال سيوران ولمن يشعرون بالسخط على العالم ولا يستطيعون احتماله ولمن ينتحر هربًا منه فسيمضى الوقت/العالم/الحياة سريعًا، نهار واحد وليل واحد وهذا كل ما في الأمر) والكثير الكثير من الافتراضات حول الزمن.
خيال جامح لكنه ممتع للغاية، تمنيت لو كان للرواية بطلة هي أنا أقوم بتجربة كل زمن في كل عالم خاص به كي أشعر بالمتعة والجنو��، وكي اختبر هكذا نوع من الحياة.
لكن من بين كافة الأزمنة، كان يبدو ليّ الزمن الخاص بعالمنا (زمننا، الزمن الذي نعيش فيه) هو أكثر نموذج عن الزمن حكمة وعقلانية من بينها بعيدًا عن أي أسباب ميتافيزيقية وبعيدًا أيضًا عن استنتاجات آينتشتين عن نسبية الزمن.
أخيرًا، أن تجد رواية (وليس كتابًا) أقول أن تجد رواية علمية، وبقلم عالم فيزيائي وتكون بلغة سلسة وممتعة، وبأفكار غزيرة لكنها غير متكلفة وغير أكاديمية هو أمر نادر وممتع.
واستثنائي في الوقت ذاته، لكنني ربما كنت أفضلها أكثر لو كانت فلسفية أكثر.
تمّت
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 ‘the’ are different from those in Zurich.) Along the shopping arcades of Kramgasse, people had put up signs telling the event organisers and visitors to ‘Go home!’.
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 – 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’t 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’s 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’ve 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’t 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’s 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’ve walked these strange mental pathways, it will be hard to see your life in time the same again.
November 2, 2017
Satírico, original, reflexivo. Sueños de Einstein es un libro que todos deberían 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, ¿qué pasaría si el pasado fuese inestable, si todas las mañanas cada persona se despertara con un pasado diferente? ¿Qué pasaría si se viviera eternamente? ¿Y si no pudiéramos aceptar el presente? ¿Y si viviéramos solo un día? ¿Y qué me dicen de un mundo en el que el tiempo transcurra desfasado, en el que la causa y el efecto sean erráticos?
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 alegría. La tragedia de este mundo es que todos están solos. Porque una vida en el pasado no puede compartirse con el presente. Cada persona que se ha quedado pegada al tiempo está allí clavada, y sola.
Un libro conmovedor que nos hace cuestionar nuestros propios modos de ver la vida y por qué 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 alegría. La tragedia de este mundo es que todos están solos. Porque una vida en el pasado no puede compartirse con el presente. Cada persona que se ha quedado pegada al tiempo está allí clavada, y sola.
Un libro conmovedor que nos hace cuestionar nuestros propios modos de ver la vida y por qué actuamos como actuamos. Lo recomiendo absolutamente.
March 30, 2022
أحلام أينشتاين
مزج خَلّاَب بين العلم والفلسفة والخيال والتصوف فى وصف الزمن
August 13, 2021
Alan Lightman nació en 1948, tiene un doctorado en física teórica y fue profesor en Harvard y en el MIT. Ha escrito varios libros de divulgación científica y un puñado de novelas entre las que se destaca esta, que apenas se editó en 1993 se convirtió rápidamente en un éxito 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 teoría de la relatividad especial. Lightman imagina a un Einstein tan enfocado en consolidar su teórica sobre el tiempo, que cada noche sueña y concibe el tiempo de una manera distinta.
Así, en cada capitulo va imaginando distintos mundos y sus consecuencias en la vida de la gente. Un mundo donde la gente vive un solo día, 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 erráticos, un mundo donde las personas viven eternamente, un mundo en el que no hay tiempo, solo imágenes; o un mundo donde el tiempo no transcurre de manera uniforme y la gente tiene visiones súbitas del futuro.
Todos los capítulos son cortos, no tienen más de tres paginas. La prosa de Lightman es ágil, fluida. Sus frases son cortas y de una tremenda fuerza visual. Utiliza mucho la enumeración y hay un tono melancólico que acompaña gran parte de la novela. No hay grandilocuencia en Lightman, pero en la simpleza de su modesto estilo se pueden encontrar pasajes bellísimos.
Una pequeña 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 teoría de la relatividad especial. Lightman imagina a un Einstein tan enfocado en consolidar su teórica sobre el tiempo, que cada noche sueña y concibe el tiempo de una manera distinta.
Así, en cada capitulo va imaginando distintos mundos y sus consecuencias en la vida de la gente. Un mundo donde la gente vive un solo día, 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 erráticos, un mundo donde las personas viven eternamente, un mundo en el que no hay tiempo, solo imágenes; o un mundo donde el tiempo no transcurre de manera uniforme y la gente tiene visiones súbitas del futuro.
Todos los capítulos son cortos, no tienen más de tres paginas. La prosa de Lightman es ágil, fluida. Sus frases son cortas y de una tremenda fuerza visual. Utiliza mucho la enumeración y hay un tono melancólico que acompaña gran parte de la novela. No hay grandilocuencia en Lightman, pero en la simpleza de su modesto estilo se pueden encontrar pasajes bellísimos.
Una pequeña novela muy recomendable, sobre todo para aquellos que disfrutan con historias que tienen al tiempo como protagonista.
4.5
June 25, 2015
من مدونتي: ثمانون كتابا بحثا عن مخرج
https://saudomar.wordpress.com
***
حصلت على نسخة من هذا العمل منذ خمس سنوات, ومنذ ذلك الحين وأنا أعيد
قراءته مره كل عام.
كتاب أحلام اينشتاين عبارة عن ثلاثين فصلاً قصيراً, كل فصل هو مزيج من القصة والفلسفة والعلم والتصوف بخصوص الزمن.
كل فصل يحكي قصة عالم مختلف للزمن فيه قصة مختلفه .. في أحد العوالم يكون الزمن دائري يكرر نفسه إلا ما لانهاية .. وفي عالم أخر يكون الزمن عبارة عن ثلاث ابعاد في كل بعد يكون لكل شخص قصة مختلفه .. وفي عالم أخر لا يوجد مستقبل .. وفي عالم أخر يتغير الماضي .. وفي عالم أخر الزمن يسبق الماضي الحاضر .. وفي عالم اخر ينفذ الزمن .. وافكار مجنونة أخرى
لا تستطيع تصنيف هذا العمل تحت تصنيف الخيال العلمي إطلاقاً لا من بعيد ولا من قريب ( رغم أن شكله يبدو كذلك ) هذا العمل في الحقيقة عمل صوفي وجودي إنساني بحت .. في كل واحدة من هذه القصص المجنونة يتخيل لايتمان شكلاً جديداً للزمن .. ثم يتخيل عالماً يحكمه هذا الشكل .. بعد ذلك ينقل لنا صورة من أفكار ومشاعر وفلسفات الناس في هذا العالم .. كيف يتصرف ويفكر ويشعر الناس لو كان الزمن لا ينتهي؟ وكيف يتصرفون لو كان المستقبل محدد سلفاً؟ وماذا لو كان الماضي متغيراً؟ وماذا لو كان الزمن سوف ينتهي بعض بضع دقائق؟ مالعلاقة بين ما نقوم به ( الأحداث ) والزمن؟ ..
لا معادلات في هذا العمل ولا سيوف ليزر ولا آلالات تتنقل في الزمن .. هنا فقط الكثير الكثير من الصوفيه .. والكثير الكثير من الآلم الوجودي ... والكثير الكثير من الشجن والجمال واللذة والطرب ..
https://saudomar.wordpress.com
***
حصلت على نسخة من هذا العمل منذ خمس سنوات, ومنذ ذلك الحين وأنا أعيد
قراءته مره كل عام.
كتاب أحلام اينشتاين عبارة عن ثلاثين فصلاً قصيراً, كل فصل هو مزيج من القصة والفلسفة والعلم والتصوف بخصوص الزمن.
كل فصل يحكي قصة عالم مختلف للزمن فيه قصة مختلفه .. في أحد العوالم يكون الزمن دائري يكرر نفسه إلا ما لانهاية .. وفي عالم أخر يكون الزمن عبارة عن ثلاث ابعاد في كل بعد يكون لكل شخص قصة مختلفه .. وفي عالم أخر لا يوجد مستقبل .. وفي عالم أخر يتغير الماضي .. وفي عالم أخر الزمن يسبق الماضي الحاضر .. وفي عالم اخر ينفذ الزمن .. وافكار مجنونة أخرى
لا تستطيع تصنيف هذا العمل تحت تصنيف الخيال العلمي إطلاقاً لا من بعيد ولا من قريب ( رغم أن شكله يبدو كذلك ) هذا العمل في الحقيقة عمل صوفي وجودي إنساني بحت .. في كل واحدة من هذه القصص المجنونة يتخيل لايتمان شكلاً جديداً للزمن .. ثم يتخيل عالماً يحكمه هذا الشكل .. بعد ذلك ينقل لنا صورة من أفكار ومشاعر وفلسفات الناس في هذا العالم .. كيف يتصرف ويفكر ويشعر الناس لو كان الزمن لا ينتهي؟ وكيف يتصرفون لو كان المستقبل محدد سلفاً؟ وماذا لو كان الماضي متغيراً؟ وماذا لو كان الزمن سوف ينتهي بعض بضع دقائق؟ مالعلاقة بين ما نقوم به ( الأحداث ) والزمن؟ ..
لا معادلات في هذا العمل ولا سيوف ليزر ولا آلالات تتنقل في الزمن .. هنا فقط الكثير الكثير من الصوفيه .. والكثير الكثير من الآلم الوجودي ... والكثير الكثير من الشجن والجمال واللذة والطرب ..
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...
January 14, 2018
This beautiful book is a gift from my dear, sweet friend, Rochelle. ❤️ 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 şi sensibile cărţi citite anul ăsta.
E o carte ce te pune pe gânduri, te face să simţi şi să (re)cunoşti lucrurile într-o altă lumină. Totul prin joaca de-a timpul, de-a "ce-ar fi dacă ar fi" timpul-inel, sau fluviu, sau arbore... Pentru că nu ştim ce e timpul. Sau cum e. Sau dacă e. Iar ipotezele autorului, limpezi şi delicate precum stampele japoneze, umplu cititorul de mirare şi încântare:
"Tragedia acestei lumi este că nimeni nu este fericit, lipit într-un timp al durerii sau al bucuriei. Tragedia acestei lumi este că toţi sunt singuri. Căci o viaţă din trecut nu poate fi împărţită cu prezentul. Oricine se lipeşte în timp, se lipeşte 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 modifică odată cu fiecare perturbare a unei adieri, a unui râs, a unui gând? Iar dacă schimbarea este pretutindeni, cum să ştii acest lucru?"
"În timp, există o infinitate de lumi. Unii lămuresc deciziile, afirmând că se vor întâmpla toate deciziile posibile. Într-o astfel de lume, cum ar putea fi cineva răspunzător de acţiunile sale? Alţii afirmă că fiecare decizie trebuie gândită şi respectată, că fără fermitate ar fi haos. Asemenea oameni sunt mulţumiţi să trăiască în lumi contradictorii, atâta timp cât ştiu raţiunea fiecăreia."
Pe scurt: sper să aveţi timp să citiţi această minunăţie. Orice fel de timp: inel, fluviu, arbore, ţesătură, iluzie...
E o carte ce te pune pe gânduri, te face să simţi şi să (re)cunoşti lucrurile într-o altă lumină. Totul prin joaca de-a timpul, de-a "ce-ar fi dacă ar fi" timpul-inel, sau fluviu, sau arbore... Pentru că nu ştim ce e timpul. Sau cum e. Sau dacă e. Iar ipotezele autorului, limpezi şi delicate precum stampele japoneze, umplu cititorul de mirare şi încântare:
"Tragedia acestei lumi este că nimeni nu este fericit, lipit într-un timp al durerii sau al bucuriei. Tragedia acestei lumi este că toţi sunt singuri. Căci o viaţă din trecut nu poate fi împărţită cu prezentul. Oricine se lipeşte în timp, se lipeşte 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 modifică odată cu fiecare perturbare a unei adieri, a unui râs, a unui gând? Iar dacă schimbarea este pretutindeni, cum să ştii acest lucru?"
"În timp, există o infinitate de lumi. Unii lămuresc deciziile, afirmând că se vor întâmpla toate deciziile posibile. Într-o astfel de lume, cum ar putea fi cineva răspunzător de acţiunile sale? Alţii afirmă că fiecare decizie trebuie gândită şi respectată, că fără fermitate ar fi haos. Asemenea oameni sunt mulţumiţi să trăiască în lumi contradictorii, atâta timp cât ştiu raţiunea fiecăreia."
Pe scurt: sper să aveţi timp să citiţi această minunăţie. Orice fel de timp: inel, fluviu, arbore, ţesătură, iluzie...
May 5, 2019
کتاب کوچک زیبایی است ..درباره زمان..تکراررندگی درزمانهای مختلف ..برداشتها اززمان
ترجمه متوسط است
عادت وخاطره شورعشق راضعیف میکند.بدون خاطره هرشب اولین شب است هرصبح اولین صبح ، هربوسه وهرنوازش اولین ها هستند...
ترجمه متوسط است
عادت وخاطره شورعشق راضعیف میکند.بدون خاطره هرشب اولین شب است هرصبح اولین صبح ، هربوسه وهرنوازش اولین ها هستند...
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 café, 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: https://www.goodreads.com/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 café, 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: https://www.goodreads.com/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’s 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 The Three-Body Problem :
You’ll find yourself within these pages and it you’ll be perceiving time very differently from now on…
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’s 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?
“[…]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.”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?
“Who 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?”
“Why 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.”
It is a wonderful, wonderful book. As Liu Cixin said in his postscript of The Three-Body Problem :
”I’ve 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.”
You’ll find yourself within these pages and it you’ll be perceiving time very differently from now on…
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