| |  | Author: Alan Lightman
Publisher: Audio Literature
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy Used: $7.49
You Save: $9.46 (56%)
New (2) Used (17) Collectible (1) from $7.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  209 reviews
Sales Rank: 1474238
Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7 x 4.3 x 0.5
ISBN: 1558008373
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781558008373
ASIN: 1558008373
Publication Date: January 1993
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Includes 2 audiocassettes in great condition. Ex-library, with typical library stamps on case and individual audiocassettes.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Mr. Physicist, meet Mr. Novelist ... May 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Rarely does a Cal Tech-trained physicist become an accomplished contributor to literary magazines like the incomparable Atlantic Monthly. Even rarer still, this one tosses off a thin little collection of whimsical reflections on the world's most famous theoretical physicist in early last-century Bern and it becomes a best seller.
As it should.
Alan Lightman places in Albert Einstein's diurnal and nocturnal wonderings and the lives that intersect with his (though one guesses that Lightman's Einstein might seldom have noticed them) thirty elegant reflections on elastic time and the people who inhabit it. Many people might have carried this project forward once it began, I imagine, but only a physicist would have thought of it.
The typical vignette is two to four pages long, perfect for a brief mental voyage and the chuckle that follows inevitably upon most of them.
Though the book is great fun, there is an earnest seriousness to the reading of it, at least in this reviewer's experience. Lightman makes us think not only about time. His prose is peopled with interesting human beings whose lives seem alternately poignant and absurd as time exercises its effect on them and they on it.
As a result, one finds oneself asking worthwhile questions about life, its speed, its nexus with others (both real and abortive), its meaning, and its importance.
You don't get that in Physics 101 unless you have an extraordinarily good teacher. Alan Lightman might just be one of those.
 Incredible artistic perspective of physics and Einstein's theories May 8, 2008
I first read this my freshman year in college, it's been over 10 years and I still read this book occasionally in wonderment of the artistic visualization of Einstein's theories. Educational, resourceful and a wonderful read. It's fantastical .
Wonderful, poetic novel... March 11, 2008
It's called a novel, but it reads like an epic prose poem.
What a great journey of the imagination.
Some reviewers gave this one star? They should know Einstein himself once warned of a mind with too much knowledge in it and not enough imagination.
I read this and loved it when it first came out, and decided recently to assign it to my senior level poetry class (B period). They loved it.
Essays on time and experience, perception and reality January 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Alan Lightman's book, Einstein's Dreams, reminded me somewhat of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, however in Einstein's Dreams the city remains the same, it is only the perception of time that changes. Lightman demonstrates how this one dimension can be manipulated in multiple ways. For example, if time has three dimensions like space, then you could be doing three different things simultaneously. Of course this leads to the next dream world whereby people get to experience their entire lives over and over but in each life they make different decisions with different consequences. In some dream worlds time is such an absolute part of people's lives that it is almost worshipped. In this world, since we can't rely on other humans at least we can rely on time to be consistent. In some of the dream worlds cause and effect are erratic and random. Thus milk is on the kitchen floor even before the milk jug is pulled from the refrigerator. In some dream worlds nothing really happens of any interest and thus time seems to be endless. In some dream worlds, various geographic areas experience time differently. In some of the dream worlds people are in the past and thus afraid of altering the future or they are in the future regretting the past. In some of the dream worlds time is circular so that you are born and die repeatedly. In some of the dream worlds time is liquid and thus makes a wake when something moves through it. The wake can then capture people and places and displace them in another time. In some of the dream worlds time can be slowed down, thus setting up a status system whereby those with the means can slow it down and those that are poor must experience time's effects sooner. In some of the dream worlds time goes backwards so that people move from death to birth. In some of the dream worlds time goes very fast for everyone, impacting relationships and meaning. In other worlds, time goes very slow, also having its effects. In some of the dream worlds, time is coming to an end and since everyone knows it, they respond accordingly.
The book seems like prose poetry, short 5 page chapters each presenting a new dream world. Whereas each dream world is unique in terms of perception of time, the towns have the same streets and landmarks as Berne Switzerland.
Thus the book is a clever essay on perception of time, but it also reflects the way we experience life and the values we hold and the memories we lose. All of these are impacted by time. This is one of those books that is reflective and thus is best read slowly since it evokes not only images but also personal memories as you read.
Mathematics December 29, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have a degree in Mathematics and I love this book. But not for the obvious reasons (physics and time...). I love this book because it is romantic in a odd way. It reads almost like poetry (that everyone can understand). This book reminded me of a Tim Burton movie. I love this book.
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