Einstein's Dreams - Summary Notes

Book Basics

  • Author: Alan Lightman
  • Year Published: 1993
  • Genre: Fiction
  • Narrator: Third-person omniscient; third-person limited in Interludes (Michele Besso's perspective).
  • Tense: Present
  • Title Significance: Refers to Albert Einstein's imagined dreams while developing his theory of time.

In Context

  • Albert Einstein: Born in Germany (1879), developed relativity theory while working in a patent office, Nobel Prize in Physics (1921), immigrated to the U.S. in 1932, advocate for peace and nuclear disarmament.
  • Theory of Relativity: Published in 1905, challenged Newtonian concepts of space and time, introduced spacetime. The Global Positioning System (GPS) exemplifies his theory.
  • Michele Besso: Swiss engineer, Einstein's close friend and confidant for over 50 years, offered a grounding perspective on Einstein's life.

Author Biography

  • Alan Lightman: Born in 1948, has a background in both science and art, studied physics at Princeton and Caltech, taught at Harvard and MIT, made contributions to astrophysics.
  • His understanding of gravitational theory allowed him to intimately understand Einstein's theory of time.

Characters

  • Albert Einstein: A patent clerk developing his theory of time. Depicted as imaginative, quiet, aloof, and deeply caring.
  • Michele Besso: Caring, engaged friend and husband, serves as a lens to view Einstein's waking world.
  • Dream Figures: Nameless characters, stand for humanity as a whole, represent different relationships with time.
  • Anna Besso: Happily married to Michele, peaceful and harmonious domestic life.
  • Mileva Einstein: Unhappily married, portrayed as ignored and neglected.

Plot Summary

  • Einstein's Dreams explores the fictional dreams of Albert Einstein in 1905 as he develops his theory of time.
  • Each dream presents a unique concept of time, inhabited by nameless Dream Figures.
  • Interludes offer glimpses of Einstein through Michele Besso's perspective, portraying him as brilliant but disconnected.
  • The Epilogue finds Einstein completing his theory but feeling empty.

Chapter Summaries

  • Prologue: Introduces Einstein as a patent clerk with a new theory of time.
  • April 14, 1905: Time is a circle, bending back on itself, the world repeats itself endlessly.
  • April 16, 1905: Time is like a flow of water that can be disturbed and carried to its past.
  • April 19, 1905: Time has three dimensions and infinite futures.
  • April 24, 1905: Two times, mechanical and body; mechanical is rigid, body is unfixed.
  • April 26, 1905: Time moves more slowly the farther time is from the center of Earth.
  • April 28, 1905: Time is evidence God exists, absolute.
  • May 3, 1905: Cause and effect are erratic.
  • May 4, 1905: Time seems barely to move at all.
  • Interlude: Einstein and Besso walk together one afternoon, discussing time.
  • May 8, 1905: The world ends on September 26, 1907.
  • May 10, 1905: A town is composed of many pieces, fastened to a different time.
  • May 11, 1905: Everything in this world is organized, aligned, and tidy.
  • May 14, 1905: Time stands still attracted to the center of the world.
  • May 15, 1905: There is no time, only frozen images.
  • May 20, 1905: People have no memories.
  • May 22, 1905: A world of changed plans - people can glimpse the future briefly.
  • May 29, 1905: Everything is in motion.
  • Interlude 2: Einstein and Besso sit together at a café.
  • June 2, 1905: Time flows backward.
  • June 3, 1905: People live only one day.
  • June 5, 1905: Time is a sense, like sight or taste.
  • June 9, 1905: People can live forever.
  • June 10, 1905: Time is measured in quality rather than quantity.
  • June 11, 1905: There is no future.
  • June 15, 1905: Time is a visible dimension.
  • June 17, 1905: Time stops and starts.
  • Interlude 3: Einstein and Besso sit together in a small fishing boat in the river.
  • June 18, 1905: A line of 10,000 people stretches from a cathedral in Rome; they are waiting to enter the Temple of Time.
  • June 20, 1905: Time changes according to location.
  • June 22, 1905: On graduation day all the boys take their paths indifferently and mechanically.
  • June 25, 1905: A man plays his violin in his room and gazes at the street below.
  • June 27, 1905: Once a week a quarry worker brings stones from the quarry to the masonry.
  • June 28, 1905: A grandmother scolds her son for eating too much at a picnic.
  • Epilogue: Einstein wakes up and walks to the window of his office, hands over his theory of time. He feels empty.

Quotes

  • "She is terrified … she will kick up dust, … as a Peter Klausen [makes] his way to the apothecary." — Narrator, 16 April 1905
  • "Time struggles forward with a weight on its back when … rushing an injured child to the hospital." — Narrator, 24 April 1905
  • "While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted." — Narrator, 28 April 1905
  • "Einstein … explain[s] to … Besso why he wants to know time. But he says nothing of his dreams." — Narrator, Interlude
  • "So, too, individual people become stuck in some point of their lives and do not get free." — Narrator, 10 May 1905
  • "Order is the law of nature, the universal trend, the cosmic direction." — Narrator, 11 May 1905
  • "Who would fare better in this world of fitful time?" — Narrator, 22 May 1905
  • "Philosophers sit in cafes on Amthausgasse and argue whether time really exists outside human perception." — Narrator, 5 June 1905
  • "Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free." — Narrator, 9 June 1905
  • "In this world, time is a line that terminates at the present, both in reality and in the mind." — Narrator, 11 June 1905

Symbols

  • Birds: Symbolize time, fleeting nature of time, dangers of trying to control time.
  • Dream Figures: Symbolize humanity as a whole; the ways in which humans perceive and deal with the structure of time in their lives.

Themes

  • Time: Explores different ways time could work, how it shapes lives and decisions, and the consequences of manipulating it.
  • Free Will: Examines the extent of human control over lives when the passage of time is beyond control, the function of perception.
  • Humanity: Deals with unique human perception and experience of time and balances human thought and emotion with science.

Motifs

  • Dreams: The substance of the novel, which is combined of Einstein's theories and the world of dreams.
  • Consequences: Cause and effect in the worlds he dreams which signifies underlying belief that any human conception of time has unforeseen consequences.