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  • Published: 25 July 2016
  • ISBN: 9781784705183
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 192
  • RRP: $27.99

Please, Mr Einstein



A novel to make you fall in love with physics and philosophy.

A young woman enters a building in a nameless contemporary European city. She walks into a waiting room where a dozen other people, with briefcases or sheaves of documents, are gathered. Ushered into a large office, she meets Albert Einstein, who is engaged in trying to figure out the equation that explains the universe. He is charmed by her, and agrees to answer her questions.

Einstein and the young woman begin discussing the concepts of time and space. He explains his theories about relativity and his responsibility in the creation of nuclear weapons. Einstein also talks about the problem of being famous, about his life in Nazi Germany and how his dreams of worldwide peace were shattered. He appears bright, witty, hugely sympathetic, but also tormented and dreamy.

  • Published: 25 July 2016
  • ISBN: 9781784705183
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 192
  • RRP: $27.99

About the author

Jean-Claude Carrière

Jean-Claude Carrière is a writer, playwright and screenwriter. He is notably the co-author of Conversations About the End of Time (with Stephen Jay Gould, Umberto Eco, etc.) He has also worked with Peter Brook, Milos Forman, Buñuel, Godard and the Dalaï Lama.

Also by Jean-Claude Carrière

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Praise for Please, Mr Einstein

A thought-provoking introduction to Einstein and quantum theory

John Williams, Mail on Sunday

Since the 1960s, Carrière has had his finger on the pulse of Europe's imagination...In Carrière's story...undecidability and doubt have leached out of science and into ethics

Lisa Jardine, The Times

[A] coruscating, yet gently whimsical, tour ...Carriére...has an impeccable pedigree in science publishing...There are some sharp incidental pleasures and some witty reflections to be enjoyed

Victoria Neumark, Times Educational Supplement

Carrière's humane sensibility makes him the ideal man to humanise Einstein

Peter Forbes, Independent