Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
This is a work of fiction that weaves in the whimsy of Einstein’s days as a patent clerk in Switzerland and the types of dreams he may have had. They are little fables that come from his dreams
Now to Einstein’s Dreams.
This is a work of fiction that weaves in the whimsy of Einstein’s days as a patent clerk in Switzerland and the types of dreams he may have had. They are little fables that come from his dreams and that relate the theory of relativity to real life. What makes this little book so good is that, as Tom Stoppard does, Lightman understands the science as he ties it into a literary piece of whimsy.
What kinds of dreams does he have?
Well, time-travel dreams. A man is plucked from the present and put somewhere else and he thinks: ‘If I touch anything will the universe turn out differently? If I go back and kill my father will I never be born?’ There is also a dream in which time flows backwards instead of forwards. The whimsy is good and so is the physics.
Read full interview
The former editor of Time magazine and CEO of CNN has written the seminal work on Einstein’s life and theory. He tells us Einstein bet his wife he’d win the Nobel Prize for his 1905 work and promised her the prize money in return for a divorce. ‘She takes a week to calculate the odds...and she takes the bet. He didn’t win until 1921 but he did give her the money and she bought three apartment buildings in Zurich.’
