Skip to content

Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal and Quantum Physics

Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal and Quantum Physics Hardcover - 2000

by Goldstein, Rebecca

  • Used
  • very good
  • Hardcover

Description

Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Hardcover. Very Good. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed.
Used - Very Good
NZ$10.05
FREE Shipping to USA Standard delivery: 4 to 8 days
More Shipping Options
Ships from ThriftBooks (Washington, United States)

About ThriftBooks Washington, United States

Biblio member since 2018
Seller rating: This seller has earned a 4 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.

From the largest selection of used titles, we put quality, affordable books into the hands of readers

Terms of Sale: 30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.

Browse books from ThriftBooks

Details

Summary

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 that carries the reader into 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 passion 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 protege. 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.
The book grapples with these elusive mysteries, but at its heart is a fiery love story of startling urgency. Insights into quantum mechanics and relativity theory are attached to the nerve fibers of human emotions, and these connections are alive with poignancy and pathos.
For these characters, the passion to know and understand, like the desire for love, 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.

Media reviews

"Brilliantly told . . . Goldstein's style is magnetic, with a poetic economy... She makes the physics fascinating."

Boston Globe

"Chronicles the quest of three physicists seeking to reconcile quantum mechanics and relativity theory ... bewitchingly ethereal ... gracefully deconstructs our contradictory impulses." Publishers Weekly

"Goldstein brings . . . an ability to . . . reveal . . . the large and immutable principles that stand . . . behind even the smallest and most intimate gestures." Elle

"Goldstein certainly writes with knowledge of both science and emotion, shining light on both for her readers." Library Journal Starred

"A brilliant novel by a master of the world of ideas, the English language, and the human heart." -- Steven Pinker, author of How the Mind Works

"Explores the powerful tension between our desire to know and our desire to love, revealing the dangers inherent in both." Memphis Commercial Appeal