Einstein's Dreams

If you had to pick a book to read this year, the 100th anniversary of Einstein's annus mirabilis, and you're not really one for physics as such, Einstein's Dreams is a good choice. It's a collection of short imaginings about the nature of time, presented as a series of dreams by a 26-year-old patent clerk in Berne, Switzerland, spring 1905, as he works to complete his theory of time.

In just a few pages each of these dreams offers a different view of time. In some of them time is recognizable--it runs backward, cause and effect are reversed, it moves more slowly at higher altitudes. In others, time is fitful, unpredictable and strange.

Alan Lightman, the author, touches on not only different kinds of time, but how they would change our behaviours and, at a basic level, our understanding of what makes life worthwhile. In one story time has a center where it is frozen. Some people approach this center during their happiest moments, hoping to preserve them forever.

Some say it is best not to go near the center of time. Life is a vessel of sadness, but it 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.

Each dream is like this--it deals as much with time as a human phenomenon as a property of the universe, and reveals how significantly our experiences and culture are bound up in our perception of time. I hate calling things "profound"--an abused word if there ever was one--but it's an apt description of this book.

Another nice touch is that the dreams take place primarily around Berne in the early 20th century--in the shops on the Marktgasse, on a balcony on the Kramgasse, in a boat on the Aare river. And so it's a book that's not exactly about Einstein, but manages to create a rich portrait of Einstein's social and intellectual milieu, spring 1905. Highly recommended.