Lightman, Alan (Costello, Chris, illustrator)

Einstein's Dreams

ISBN: 9780679416463
New York, NY: Pantheon, 1993. First Edition. Hardcover. Inscribed and signed by Alan Lightman. MIT professor and physicist Alan Lightman (b. 1948) is as much a writer and educator as a scientist. Lightman has written poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, contributed to dozens of magazines and journals, and has degrees in physics, theoretical physics, and astrophysics. His realm of interest has focused on the intersection of science and humanities, culminating in his most recent publication The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science (Penguin Random House, 2023). Hoping to cultivate a new generation of creative thinkers, Lightman cofounded the Graduate Program in Science Writing at MIT and the biannual Kennedy Center American College Theater Award for a play about science. One of very few in his time sitting on the fence of the two, Lightman has probably contributed to a major expansion of interest in how science and the humanities can come together. Einstein’s Dreams, his first novel, quickly became an international bestseller and has since been translated into thirty languages. Recounting the story of famed theoretical physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) in his so-called annus mirabilis (year of miracles), Lightman depicts the emotional and intellectual strife he must have experienced while dreaming up varying conceptions of time that conflict with observable reality. The fantastical worlds dreamt up subconsciously elicit some realization that contributes to his conscious thinking, and each dream is like a legend of time and space from another world until he finds the one that fits our world: “His dreams have worn him out, exhausted him so that he sometimes cannot tell whether he is awake or asleep. But the dreaming is finished. Out of many possible natures of time, imagined in as many nights, one seems compelling. Not that the others are impossible. The others might exist in other worlds,” (6-7). Lightman takes the reader on the revelatory journey of a genius that anyone can appreciate as a person living in this world. Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket: First Edition, as stated on copyright page. A previous owner inscribed the front endpaper with “Ex Libris / Leifski / Backmanski / 1993” in bold black felt-tip pen. Author signature and inscription to the same owner is found on the title page in black ink and reads, “To Leif / with best wishes / Alan Lightman / January 1994.” Book is in Fine condition with only mild rubbing to the fine edges of the front, back covers and spine; very slight scratching to same; pages are pristine. Dust jacket is in Near Fine condition with mild shelf-wear to fine edges and corners of front, back covers and spine; mild scratching and spotting to front, back covers. Fine / Near Fine. [Item #5733]

Price: $75.00