Word: einsteins
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...repeated a million more times in the future. Or imagine a world where time runs backwards, or is discontinuous, or takes the form of a nightingale. These are some of the concepts of time that Alan Lightman, who teaches physics and writing at M.I.T., describes in his new novel, Einstein's Dreams...
...this tiny tome Lightman takes an entirely new approach to Einstein's theory of relativity, which scientists and writers have been trying to explain ever since Einstein proposed the theory in 1905. According to the theory, gravity causes time to slow down. The theory forever disproves and rejects the old-fashioned notion of absolute time. Lightman imagines what dreams Einstein might have had while concocting his theory, dreams that don't even seem too fantastical after one accepts the fact that time is not absolute...
Lightman's Einstein, a 26-year-old patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, is tormented with dreams about time. Every night he envisions a new world where time affects the inhabitants of Bern differently. Each vision is organized like a fable, ending with an important message for the reader on how to live life best...
...lovers stopped in time and grandparents growing young again still touch the reader and force one to reconsider accepted conceptions of time. Surprisingly enough, Lightman bases many of the dreams on real physics. In a vision derived from the theory that gravity stops time in a black hole, Einstein dreams that in the center of time, time freezes. Even the vision in which time branches into three dimensions has scientific backing...
...than Jaroff, who has been explaining the mysteries of the universe to TIME readers since 1966, when he became the magazine's chief science writer. Later named senior editor of the section, he oversaw projects, including the memorable cover on anthropologist Richard Leakey and a centennial tribute to Albert Einstein, that proved so successful they led to his role as founding editor of Discover magazine. Four years later, he returned to TIME in the newly created position of sciences editor...