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Title: Please, Mr Einstein
Authors: Carriere, Jean-Claude
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 185
Year: 2007
Language: English
Description: It is the early 21st century, and a young, nameless student, intent on learning more about Albert Einstein, finds her way into a mysterious office that houses Einstein himself - full of generosity and the desire to make his ideas plain. Having covered the basics of relativity, the student soon presses Einstein to examine the morality of his theories and his responsibility for the creation of nuclear weapons: could the world after Hiroshima and Nagasaki truly be a better place?

Comments from Groups:

Enjoyed exploring cross-over between science and philosophy when things cannot be explained by scientific theory. Mt Maunganui 002

The book promoted discussing a wide range of topics. General conclusion: there are a lot of things we don't know about that don't touch our daily lives. We need books like this to push our horizons. Dannevirke 001

This was a difficult book to read - the physics in it was too much for many readers. However, the discussion was thought provoking. Auckland 224

Categories: Fiction, Morals/Ethics, Science & Technology, Short read

Reviews

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By: WAIKA 011 2024-08-19 12:51:33
4 
The people in our group who had at least some understanding of Maths and Physics enjoyed the book. Those that did not have even a basic understanding did not. We thought the structure of the interviewer meeting people from another time frame was a bit thin.

By: TAKA 001 2024-02-08 14:50:01
4 
Most enjoyed the book and were interested in finding out more about Einstein. There was a great deal of discussion, not only about Einstein's theories, but scientific discoveries in general.

By: AUCK 071 2024-02-08 14:41:34
3 
Discussion lively and diverse. Majority did not like the book, but a few thought it thought-provoking and "different".

By: CULV 001 2024-02-08 14:38:36
3 
The discussion went really well but only one person 'enjoyed' it. Members would have preferred a novel with a point to it, or some excitement.

By: HAMIL 053 2024-02-08 14:33:11
3 
This was an interesting read in that some of our members really enjoyed it, and gained knowledge from it. Others struggled as although written for lay people, some had some knowledge of Einstein's theories and found it tedious and uninteresting in places.

By: AUCK 379 2024-02-08 14:28:49
3 
Brief and interesting.

By: HOKITIK 004 2023-03-22 21:31:55
2 
Most struggled with motivation to read this novel, in part the content (physics) but also the style, maybe something got lost in the translation? We did have a great discussion and more than one person said they gained greater understanding from our chat than from the book! We each brought quotes attributed to Einstein to share and these opened further discussion paths. Keeping in mind that it is a novel, not a biography, we all agreed that this book didn't enlighten us the way we had hoped it might, and we were left wondering how accurate this portrayal of Einstein actually was.

 
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