It’s a series of meditations on variations in our perception of time. Like Einstein thinking of extremes (a black hole singularity or riding a light beam), it can shed light on the way we experience time over a lifetime. And it reminds me how we remember a lifetime as a series of salient events. Children overclock the metronome of life, as we see them changing before our very eyes.
Einstein often relied on visual imagination and "thought experiments" (Gedankenexperimente) to form his breakthrough physics concepts. This little tome imagines the different worlds he might have dreamt about.
One example:
“In this world, no person can imagine the future. In a world without future, each loneliness is final. In a world without future, each laugh is the last laugh. In a world without future, beyond the present lies nothingness, and people cling to the present as if hanging from a cliff. In a world without future, each moment is the end of the world.” (p.101)
We inspire humanity when we build a better future.
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