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Einstein's Dreams
by Alan Lightman

How does time flow? Why does time flow? Does time flow? Find out in this book, which I gave four and a half stars out of five. This review was originally done as an English assignment.

Review

Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman poses some very interesting questions about the nature of time. It delves into what Einstein may have dreamed about while he was working in a Swiss patent office and, at the same time, writing his now-famous theories on the mind-boggling characteristics of space and time. From a world where everything will repeat itself forever to a land where it is common knowledge that the life of the universe will come to an abrupt halt on September 26, 1907, this book is filled with short stories that are sure to get anyone thinking.

Usually, I’m not a big fan of short-story collections. I prefer a deep plot with plenty of twists and turns. If each story is just a couple pages, it’s hard for me to get pulled in. However, this book is one exception. It has no real plot, and instead aims to get one thinking about how time might flow in some parallel universe. It just takes a couple of pages to do that. Afterwards, one can move right on to the next astonishing thought. I’ve always been fascinated by time, and my more recent reading on how it’s different for everyone has left me with a lot of questions. This book really feeds off that curiosity and lets it grow.

For someone who absolutely needs a plot, this wouldn’t be a very enjoyable read. However, for someone interested in metaphysical lands with time that flows backwards, in a series of images, or not at all, I highly recommend this short novel. Potential readers might also want to consider is that the book is not very long – 179 pages with fairly large margins and small pages. I give this book four and a half stars out of five.

Summary

How does time flow? Why does time flow? Einstein’s Dreams, by Alan Lightman, attempts to answer those questions and more in thirty short stories – each set in a world where time doesn’t flow as we know it. The book begins in a Swiss patent office, where Einstein toils away every day, reviewing patent applications at the same time as writing his theory of time. Every so often, he writes inventors to suggest product enhancements – even though, much of the time, those lucky people don’t even know who’s making the proposals. The majority of this book is filled by the tales of Einstein’s dreams as imagined by Alan Lightman (as it should be), but the few pages here and there about Einstein’s real life are just enough to get the reader interested in what kind of a person he was.

In one story, cause and effect don’t always have to come in that order. When cause or effect can come first, how can one tell the two apart? In another tale, one part of a town may live in the fifteenth century while another lives in the twenty-first. In one fun-to-imagine world, people have discovered that an increase in speed through physical space results in a decrease in speed through time. Eager to preserve as much time as possible, they race everywhere they go. In another short story that really gets one thinking about different people’s different attitudes in the world, everyone lives forever. The world then separates into Nows and Laters. The Nows reckon that they might as well cram as much into their lives as possible, and thus rush to do everything as fast as possible. The Laters reason that, with all the time they have, why bother with work when they can just do it some other time? Those are all just a few of the many eye-opening and fanciful stories found within this masterful blend of art and science.