What a fun, fast (relatively..pun intended) and thought-provoking read! Lightman presents easily over 20+ depictions of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Each little vignette unveils a different world of how to perceive time. If time were crystal ball, Lightman looks at this crystal ball from above, below, upside down, inside out, backwards, forward etc. Although some of the stories weren’t incredibly captivating — most were and I would suggest this book to any artist visual/musical/literary or philosopher. It challenges the thoughts of freewill versus fate again and again.
Let’s see — I’ll try to sum up a few chapters in one line. A world in which time has stopped at a fixed point, raindrops hang from the sky that sort of thing and as you travel away from this fixed point in time, time speeds up. In another place time is infinite, each choice a person makes in his life or series of choices splits into separate worlds each world splitting and again from another like a branch that continues to grow. A world every person lives one day, and the personality is developed whether they were born at 12 AM or 12 PM. In yet another world, one second in time colors one’s personality indefinitely… I.e. tramatic or fortunate event and how life is woven around this second in time. A world exists in which every hour is lived by a different person — so let’s take the next hour *at this moment* and each hour that every individual in the world is experiencing now— so this one hours no longer just one hour but rather centuries.
I finished this book with a sharpened perception of time and relativity. One of my wishes would have been to have a brief epilogue going through each story with a scientific interpretation.
Thanks Monica for the suggestion — good call, this one was right up my alley.