Einstein's Dreams (Alan Lightman)
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In Einstein's Dreams, the young Einstein is seen dreaming about different aspects and possibilities associated with time and how time affects people and their mode of life. These dreams suggest that time may be less direct and less certain than physicists have always assumed it to be. Historians see time as a straightforward affair, moving in one direction, with one event coming after another on a timeline. Einstein speculates about how the world would be different if time were different. More than this, he considers the meaning of time to those who experience it and the way different conceptions of time or different senses of time would affect the way people view causality and how they might analyze the idea of historical time. Lightman notes first the difference in the physical world between time as it is assessed by physicists and time as it is experienced by individuals: In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time. The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. the second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish at bay (23). The use of the word "mechanical" is key, for this is time as measured by the clock. It is described in mechanical terms, emulating the swing of the pendulum. Human time, however, is personal and organic, and the use of the bluefish as an example emphasizes this point. History is lived by human beings, of course, and it is also analy
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Approximate Word count = 1045
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page)
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