"Einstein's Dreams" - reflections by Caitlin Daniels

“Einstein’s Dreams” – Alan Lightman 

   reflections by Caitlin Daniels

Alan Lightman’s “Einstein’s Dreams” is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he was working at the patent office in Switzerland. 
Lightman is a teacher of physics at MIT and with his expertise, takes us down a very conceivable path that Albert may have dreamt as he struggled with his theory of relativity.  This is an incredibly creative book that forces you to open your mind and think in very nontraditional terms.  Einstein's Dreams compel us to reconsider the meaning of time in our own lives. How often have you wished we could "capture time in a bottle," stall time, speed it up, escape it? How do we each experience time, especially when we tell stories about ourselves? What happens when two people with different perceptions of time try to relate events, stories, and meaning to one another? In Albert’s dreams, he imagines many worlds that are possible.  The different perspectives he explores are:

•A world where Time is a Circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself , precisely

•A world where Time is like a flow of water, occasionally displaced by a bit of debris a passing breeze

•A world where Time moves in three dimensions like space

•A world where Time is in 2 forms- Physical time and Body time

•A world where Time flows slowly, the farther one is from the earth

•A world where Time is absolute

•A world where Cause and Effect are erratic. Time and events in the past have no bearing on the events in the present - Unpredictability is the order of the day.

•A world where Time does pass, but little happens from day to day

•A world where Time ends on a certain date

•A world where Time appears or moves at different pace in the same town

•A world where Passage of time brings more order to the world

•A world where Time stands still

•A world where there is no Time .There are only images

•A world where there is no memory and hence no significance of Time

•A world characterized by changed plans, unexpected visions, sudden opportunities

•A world where Time passes more slowly for people in motion

•A world where Time flows backward

•A world where people live only one day

•A word where Time is sense, like taste or sight

•A world where people live forever,

•A world where Time exists but cannot be measured

•A world without a future

•A world where Time is a visible dimension

•A world where Time is discontinuous

•A world where Time is a local phenomenon

•A world where Time is rigid bone like structure

•A world where there are countless copies

•A world which thinks that firmness to past is an illusion

•A world where Time moves differently by age of a person

There is a vignette dedicated to each of the above perspectives and it portrays various aspects of the world if the above perspective were to hold good.  Lightman takes the reader through the Albert’s imagined worlds, creating cities in which time is cyclical and citizens are doomed to repeat their triumphs and mistakes eternally; in which people routinely get caught in wandering paths of time and are washed back into the past; in which time is believed to flow more slowly at higher altitudes so that all humans, in order to live longer, build their houses on mountaintops; in which there is no connection between cause and effect and people live a carefree existence in each separate moment, and in which it is possible to stop time and live forever within a favorite instant. Occasionally, Einstein wakes up, goes home, dines with a friend, or stares blankly off into the distance, but the focus here is not on his personal life. Instead, with these brief, light vignettes, Lightman offers a glimpse into strange theoretical kingdoms--and also lets you in on the workings of a creative scientific mind. Even though this is a work of pure fiction, it is a classic book as it makes you  wonder about the possibilities that you can come up with, while thinking on any issue -   be it writing your next school assignment, molding your career, improving the profitability of a company, framing the hypotheses of a model, etc.  You must open up your mind to the various possibilities. After all, brilliant ideas are nothing but a combination of ideas and simulation of possible scenarios.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.  Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”         - Albert Einstein