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    Properties Of Light: A Novel
    Properties Of Light: A Novel
    Properties Of Light: A Novel
    Ebook233 pages11 hours

    Properties Of Light: A Novel

    By Rebecca Goldstein

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A thought provoking novel about the connection between the passion for knowledge and the desire to love from award–winning author Rebecca Goldstein.

    A New York Times Notable Book

    A grand gothic novel of the outer reaches of passion—of the body and of the mind—Properties of Light is a mesmerizing tale of consuming love and murderous professional envy entangled within the very heart of a physics problem so huge and perplexing it thwarted even Einstein: the nature of light.

    Caught in the entanglements of erotic and intellectual desire are three physicists: Samuel Mallach is a brilliant theoretician unhinged by the professional glory he feels has been stolen from him; Dana is his intriguing and gifted daughter, whose desperate devotion to her father contributes to the tragic undoing of Justin Childs, her lover and her father’s protégé. All three are working together to solve some of the deepest and most controversial problems in quantum mechanics, problems that challenge our understanding of the “real world” and of the nature of time. Their shared obsession is full of terrible risk, holding out possibilities for heartbreak as well as for ecstasy.

    The true subject of Properties of Light is the ecstatic response to reality, perhaps the only response that can embrace the erotic and the poetic, the scientific and the spiritual. Written with, and about, a rare form of passion, this incandescent novel is fiction at its most daring and utterly original.

    “A passionate love story rendered with dazzling intelligence.” —Award–winning author Maureen Howard

    “Daring . . . startling . . . breathtakingly surprising.” —New York
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateAug 29, 2000
    ISBN9780547561622
    Properties Of Light: A Novel

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    Reviews for Properties Of Light

    3.5/5

    22 ratings1 review

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    • 3/5
      This is the third book I have read of Rebecca Goldstein (the others were "The Mind-Body Problem, which I enjoyed immensely, and The Late Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind", which was also enjoyable, but far from the level of the former). I did like aspects of this book as well, but overall it somewhat dissapointed me. It is written in a much more mysterious tone than the other two books; however, it seemed rather forced... The language is also often quite complex (and not just due to the subject matter - quantum mechanics), but it has been a long time since I had to look up so many words. Not that liguistic complexity in writing is necessarily bad, but when there are perfectly useable simpler synonyms for everyday words, it seems a bit artificial to use dictionary-only words... Overall, I found the descriptions of the physics department dynamics the most fascinating and focused part of this book, the characters and their mysterious interactions less so. And the Love Story - well, frankly it seemed too forced and too convenient for the story. Furthermore, it does not help that the language describing their love making sessions is a bit Danielle Steele-like...A great contrast to the bitter-sweet love stories of her other two books. I did like some of the quantum mechanics descriptions - I mean, what a hard subject to tackle for a fiction novel! I remember being fascinated with the Measurement Problem when I took courses in physics years ago, and I must give Goldstein credit for incorporating highly readable extracts of such conundrums (even though I sort of doubt I would have been able to follow if I had never taken a physics class in my life). Finally, I doubt I would recommend this book to people who has had no background in the hard sciences, and if they did - I would be worried about recommending such a cheesy love story, no matter how mysteriously the language flows... If you are reading Goldstein for the first time, pick up a copy of the delightfully clever Mind-Body Problem

    Book preview

    Properties Of Light - Rebecca Goldstein

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