The Invisible Century: Einstein, Freud, and The Search for Hidden Universes

By Richard Panek

Book Overview

The Invisible Centuryis an original look at two of the most important revolutions?and revolutionaries?of the modern era. This dual biography of Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud? and their parallel journeys of discovery that altered forever our understanding of the very nature of reality. Einstein and Freud were the foremost figures in search of the next level of scientific knowledge?evidence we can?t see. Here on the frontier of the invisible, their investigations reached unprecedented realms?relativity and the unconscious?and spawned the creation of two new sciences, cosmology and psychoanalysis. Together they have allowed us for more than a hundred years to explore previously unimaginable universes without and within.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0143035525
• ISBN13: 9780143035527
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Penguin Group USA
• Length: 258 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.3" x 0.5" x 5.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

brilliant and intoxicating

I'm very careful about what science (or math. or anything that's not MBA) that I read, because usually these texts are dry, boring to the point of What's the Point? Why would an author write a book that seems to deliberately set out to lose readers is my question. But The Invisible Century is one of those extremely rare books (Bill Bryson's Short History of the World is the only other one in recent memory I can think of) that is not just fascinating, but also fascinatingly written, and that makes some extremely difficult ideas -- Einstein's theory's of relativy, hello? -- almost thrillingly understandable. I put down this book, and for the first time felt I understand what Einstein was driving at. Ditto went for Freud's theory of the unconscious. Panek's amazing point (kind of profound, when you think about it) is that Einstein began probing the heavens at the same time Freud began experimenting with his theories of the unconsicous -- that basically both men (who did meet once, acc. to Panek!), were after the secrets that lay behind invisible screens -- Einstein the sky, and what lay beyond it, and Freud our dreamworld and our id. Really fascinating stuff. Now as a topic, none of this is easy sledding. But it's RIchard Panek's great gift to make these profound contributions by two of the towering geniuses of the last century into something succinct, intriguing, readable, and easy-to-understand, while never patronizing the reader, or lapsing back into over-intellectual science talk. Except for the Bryson book, I didn't think there was such a thing as a science book I could not put down. But this is one. Buy The Invisible Century right now! You'll be glad you did!