Customer Reviews

The Einstein Enigma: A Novel

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have to say that my opinion about José Rodrigues dos Santos' "The Einstein Enigma" rose and fell like a demented roller coaster as I made my way through its 485 pages. At first, I thought, "Well, this is okay, but nothing special." Further on, when the characters talk about fractal mathematics, quantum mechanics, relativity, chaos theory, Schrödinger's Cat, cosmology, etc., I thought, "Wow, this is great stuff!" My opinion waxed and waned as Portuguese cryptanalyst Thomás Noronha travels to Iran to decipher a mysterious document written by Albert Einstein shortly before the great physicists' death in 1955. Noronha gets thrown into an Iranian prison, escapes, travels to Tibet and then back to his home in Portugal, all the while desperately trying to break the code of what Einstein called "Die Gottesformel" ("The God Formula"). About two-thirds of the way through, I got bogged down in seemingly endless discussions of Buddhist, Hindu and Tao philosophies--interesting in a way, but not really my thing. Then, with more cosmology discussions, my opinion soared again. But unfortunately, near the end, it took a nosedive when I found myself thinking, "You MUST be kidding me!"

So what to say about this hard-to-characterize novel? Well, it's definitely filled with far more talk than action. I didn't really mind that, since I found the talk, at least when it involved science and not religion, very interesting. I personally enjoyed the many long dialogues about matter, energy and cosmology, although these parts may be tough going for readers not interested in those subjects. The characters are pretty well-developed, except for a few American CIA agents, who come across as flinty, profane, two-dimensional, lone-wolf, shoot-'em-up, hyper-patriot types. I find it intriguing to speculate that this is what many non-Americans (author dos Santos is Portuguese) really think about CIA agents--but that's another blog. The cryptological analyses that Noronha performs on Einstein's manuscript are fascinating, if not exceptionally deep, and there's a strong sense of revelation when the answer to the enigma finally emerges.

But not in the answer itself. My biggest disappointment with "The Einstein Enigma" comes from my feeling that the cover blurb, based on which I decided to read the book, is misleading. I won't reveal the ending, but I will alert readers by mentioning two cautionary code words: "intelligent design." This is not exactly the same "intelligent design" that the Evangelical Christian right-wing is trying to force into America's educational system, but it is "design" by an "intelligent" entity. If rational scientific thought and any form of ID can co-exist in your mind, then you may find "The Einstein Enigma" an enjoyable, thought-provoking read. But if your nature is purely rational (if you are a "freethinker," to use another code word), you should probably carefully consider whether you want to read a book that, toward the end, deals with a subject you'd normally steer well clear of. Thus my three-star rating, which is basically an average of my ratings for the science parts (five stars) and the religious parts (one star). Read it if you like, but be aware that it may not be what you expect...

A code that might prove the existence of God. Einstein. Mystery, international intrigue, spies. Cosmology, quantum physics, and proofs for the existence and reality of God.

Wow!

Except, drag that wow out a bit. W---o----w, slowly, because that is the pace at which this book proceeds.

There is also a certain amount of chutzpah. Einstein's initial conversation with Ben Gurion contains a simplistic refutation of God, said by Einstein, and barely passable in a Philosophy 101 class. Later in the book, our lead character suffers a painful meeting with his parents, in order to learn his father has cancer. Three pages, to introduce a few key plot details.

A meeting with the CIA yields a painfully 7th grade level discussion of nuclear fission and fusion, with our PHD interpreter expressing ignorance of each basic fact. This is the pattern of the book, with one person after another lecturing in a condescending fashion, to other characters and to the reader.

The author also has a tick... when one of his characters makes an argument about the existence of God, he has the listender say "Incredible!" in a complimentary fashion. Well. This is a clever little writing trick, where the author presents the argument, and presents the correct response to the argument. Guess what? The reader gets to decide if an argument is awesome, incredible, earth-shattering. And, on the so-called proof for the existence of God, I say, ho-hum, a bit vague, stated in an unclear fashion, many veils and little substantial presentation.

I think that a plot with Einstein, God, and quantum physics... and a lead character very aware of feminine wiles -- should be a Wow. This one is at best mildly cool, in a slow, slow, slow way. Drop 90 pages and add some oomph to the dialogue and this would be a winner.

Do you want a philosophical treatise? Fine, dive in. How about religious fundamentalism concerning the Creation? Yep, get it here. Or, fascinating lectures on the chaos theory, or the Big Bang account of Creation and its accompanying Big Crunch or Big Chill (we are nearing that deterministic point which has not established which Big C will happen). Or how about a little fictional?/biographical? accounting of Albert Einstein's theory of God? And cryptology? Yes, for sure, cryptology is at the heart of the novel, for the main character is a cryptanalyst. Oh, yes, the actual novel content? A story about a man (the renowned cryptanalyst) hired by dubious sources to discover the formula for cracking a direly urgent cryptogram in order to obtain the formula for making an atomic bomb--AND this character's improbable romance with an Iranian scientist (a beautiful and brainy woman).

Yes, you get all of that--what a bargain!--right here in "The Einstein Enigma" by Portuguese writer Jose Rodrigues Dos Santos. Perhaps I seem a bit sardonic, perhaps I am. It's been a week since I finished the book and I'm still mulling what I read. No matter how sarcastic I might sound throughout this review, let me point out at the onset that I read the entire novel--every page, every word, and did much highlighting at that! That alone should tell the reader that no matter whatever else I might write, that I did, indeed, read this book in its entirety (even though I read three other books during the duration). So, what am I indicating? Even though the book is an enigma (ha! use of pun!), it is really fascinating and educational and instructional--

Perhaps I can clarify my mixed responses. The novel really grabs the reader's attention at the onset. A flashback shows a meeting between Albert Einstein and then Israeli leader Ben-Gurion, who wants the great scientist to do him a favor. What that is remains a secret for the reader. Over the next few years Einstein (and clandestinely, some of his assistants) work on what he calls "Die Gottesformel" or the God Formula. He hides the most important part in a double cryptogram.

Years later the Iranians "acquire" (through torture, murder, and theft) Einstein's manuscript, then hire Tomas Noronha, the cryptanalyst, to decipher the cryptogram, but refuse him access to the manuscript. You know how it goes: a cryptogram is based on the manuscript, none of which Noronha is allowed to see, making deciphering triply difficult.

I loved this part of the novel, this search for the mystery behind the cryptogram, this pairing of such disparate minds--the Portuguese humanist and the Iranian scientist in deciphering this deep mystery. Unraveling the meaning also introduces the reader to the mind works of Mr. Einstein himself, as well as companion problem solvers (for that is truly what Einstein was).

Then there's all this dialogue (actually, lecture) about the Big Bang theory, chaos theory, quantum science, relativity, the scientific method, who and what is God, electromagnetism, the uncertainty principle, Eastern wisdom, Western science, Olber's paradox, gravity, black holes, the Bible--you get the picture? The book is just about everything of eternal importance.

Fascinating stuff, I thought, but in a novel? Then I justified the author's use of all this lecture: Wow, what a bold move for a writer to create a philosophical treatise based on mathematics, science, religion, philosophy, history and call it a novel! Then I thought, why not just write a treatise? Patience, reader, patience, for patience is required to read this thoughtful, provocative novel of ideas.

About three-fourths in, all the pieces began to lay in place, making the writer's intent clear. And what an intent! Without giving a spoiler, I can refer the reader to the title: The Einstein Enigma. No, still not clear?

For the reader who enjoys a great mystery, a complicated puzzle and doesn't mind seeming digressions into all those realms of human thought and experiment previously mentioned, this journey is well worth taking. The reader may disagree with the final conclusion, but that's pretty much irrelevant. It is the journey, not the destination that will test and tease the mind. Frankly, now that I've written this review and completed my mulling, I will state that I loved this novel, despite its annoyances. I don't have to agree with a person to appreciate his thought processes or originality or sheer creativity. For those are the stuff of this novel!

Note: Two days after posting this review, I see that I failed to mention what a globetrotter Noronha had to be in his quest for answers. First to Iran with Ariana (and later becomes a "guest" of the Iranian prison system), back to Portugal, then on to Tibet to visit one of Einstein's assistants for another piece of the puzzle via Hindu, Buddhist, and Tao lectures, then back to Portugal for more lecture and puzzle solving via the assistant of an assistant. Does all this seem complicated? You bet. Entertaining? Definitely. Instructional? To the nth degree!

I have to say, that this book is an enigma. The writing is poor and the dialogue is pathetic. The characterizations are awful. However, there is an interesting gem of a plotline running through the book. Additionally, the author is excellent at providing concise overviews of physical theories and quantum mechanics. I am not sure if the dialogue and the surrounding story telling are the fault of the author or the translator (translated from Portuguese), but this book just does not fulfill this reader's expectations of what could have been.

Jose Rodrigues Dos Santos is on the popular quest of discovering God and the Meaning of Life through Physics and Quantum Mechanics. This is the newest of the philosophical issues to be addressed through science over the last several decades and it makes for some interesting reading. However, this author and the translator have written the story using amateurish, unemotional and ridiculous characters, interchangeable, flat and utterly non-colloquial dialogue and then exhibited no reserve to their artistic license:

- Picking a lock to gain entrance into the Ministry of Science in Tehran?
- Secret Iranian agents spilling their complete stories to the captive to show how smart they were.
- Spanish document found and then not translated to the reader
- CIA using a history professor to enter Iran, steal a document, and escape again
- CIA director not using a secure a line to talk to his agent in the Iranian break-in.
- Absolutely no ability to write the spy agent part of the novel - no tails, losing people at will, etc.

I found that when the author was attempting to describe scientific theories (The Uncertainty Principle, Incompleteness Theorems, Chaos Theory, Cosmic Rhythm) or factor in religion, then the text picked up the pace and became very well written and held my attention. But the "story" part of the book was very poorly written and constructed. In this book the author is attempting to combine the works of Einstein and then show the relevance of quantum mechanics and the philosophy of Eastern and Western religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hebrew and Islam) to the meaning of life. It is a gigantic undertaking and he did a credible job of pulling off the scientific and philosophic concepts.

The premise is really very interesting, but the setting into which he attempted to place this information failed him.

Beneath the surface, this book is not what it appears to be. It is not an action, adventure, mystery novel. That is not what is the core of this book. It does have some action, some adventure and a lot of mystery. But if you want or are expecting a typical action/adventure novel then you might be disappointed. This book is fundamentally about God. And proving God exists by using Physics and Mathematics. The core proof comes from Einstein but what creates the mystery is that you must read the entire book to find the answer.

The book is about a manuscript with an encrypted proof of God's existence, postulated but not published by Einstein. It falls into the hands of Iran with the expectation that it is in fact a means to manufacture a simple easy to build nuclear weapon. The adventure begins when a historian with cryptanalysis ability is hired to decrypt the manuscript so that a nuclear weapon can then be built.
However, the true story is that this book is of an essentially new theory regarding the Universe, cloaked as a action/mystery novel. Quite intriguing and difficult to execute but in this case, exceptionally well done.

The Einstein Enigma is well written, moves at a good pace, is interesting, intriguing and is quite satisfying to read. I really liked this book even though I disagree with some of the "proofs" and tenets of the book.

If you are fascinated with nuclear physics, the universe and what it all means, then definitely read this book. If you want to read an interesting argument regarding God's existence then read this book. You don't have to believe in God to find this book interesting, although you may find the "proof" hard to contradict. But you will need to endure as the book tends to drag out the finality somewhat.

If however, you tend to nitpick, expect perfection and cannot overlook obvious mistakes, then skip this book. It has some redundancy, a little filler (not enough to worry about) and a few mistakes here and there but they easily surpassed by the overall quality of the book. If you cannot overlook fundamental unanswered questions or shaky premises (on which much of the book depends) then skip the book. If you demand a top notch spy thriller with all the right types of characters doing exactly what is expected then you will be disappointed. If you focus on the characters as the center of the novel then you will be disappointed, the characters are not really central to this story but just a means to provide the background to the "proof". If the core of a book is as fascinating and mysterious as this one, I can ignore and overlook all the mistakes and negatives and just enjoy the adventure.

Everyones here: the Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, the mouse, and all the usual suspects, just not the uninvited star. A book that is excellent in every way: inside & out & sideways of course. But since the last arguement made is that the universe was so perfect & just-just right: why no mention of the Goldilocks question? I'am looking at my White Rabitt watch & I must hurry off, as I'am late already. You may call me a hare brane, but you see in physics, branes or p-branes are spatially extended...
The aside above was to show enigmatically what the books about: quantum physics. An ingenious method of using Einstein's presence in the historical sense(1951 to 1955) to tell a story in the present. The surface story involves a nuclear bomb project that is potentially beyond the scope of present day knowledge. The knowledge is ciphered in a paper of Einstein's that has fallen into Iranian hands(Disneynic-stylistic-badnics).
Enter Tomas Noronha, an American professor with crptanalysis skills, who will take the reader on an internation spy chase to find the meaning behind Die Gottesformel-The God Formula.
In reality this novel is concerned with the deeper story of: what or who made the universe God or ?, Intelligent Design? or The Blind Watchmaker?
Cudos for the author's methods used in bringing readers into the realm of quantum physics, mysticisms, religions; and where they meet when it comes to mankind's place in the cosmos, the meaning of it all, & how it all began. What does it REALLY mean?
Fortunately, the author is simply superb in his explanations of these & other complex ideas. A taste/And the mathematical formula that orgainizes this cosmic rhythm arises out of mathematical systems that are the basis of the way the universe is organized: chaos theory. It was found that chaos is synchronous. It appears to be chaotic, but in reality its behavior is deterministic: it obeys patterns and is governed by well defined rules. Despite being synchronous , its behavoir never repeats and we can therefore say that chaos is deterministic but inderterminable. It can be predicted in the short term because of deterministic laws but is unpredictable in the long term because the complexity of what is real. There will always be mystery at the end of the universe.
The passages on Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity and more are just as deep, complex & adept. Argumentative/complimentary with each other(from all the above), in subsequent paragraphs and dialogues, drawing the reader deeper & deeper into the meaning of a reality that makes this a real noodle grinder.
The Goldilocks Theory, in my title, refers to the perspective from an intellegence that sprung from conditions just-so-right, that their intelligence was just-so-right(even in it's evolution), and so they could only go as far as the just-so-right point. Stuck, at just being so-right. Google: Goldilocks Theory Physics, as I'am not anywhere as adept as the author. He left it out, but thats a minor quibble. Although I don't agree with the author's conclusion, I can't fault... his method to madness.
Theories that describe matter & forces as we see them in the cold, imply that all these structures will melt away in the heat. According to theory, the pattern of particles and forces that we are governed by, may be randomly frozen accidental remnants, of symmetry breaking when the universe froze at the temperature of about 10 to the 17th degrees(10 w/ 17 zeroes). Had the spontaneous symmetry breaking, had other parameters, we would not be here to notice it.

Go deep on this one... and score.

In lieu of a textbook, Einstein Enigma by Jose Rodrigues Dos Santos is a weak story that uses characters to teach, preach and champion the author's scientific and theological knowledge and theory of the origin and purpose of life.

The story begins with the years before Albert Einstein's death just three years after the birth of Israel, with a meeting between Einstein and future Prime Minister Ben-Gurion. Thinking the meeting had something to do with producing an inexpensive Atom Bomb for Israel; the CIA secretly taps into and records the conversation.

Einstein makes a study for the Israelis' and produces an encrypted document known as the Die Gottesformel--the God Formula.

Some years following Einstein's death, an Iranian overheard a conversation made by Albert's understudy from Portugal, Professor Augusto Siza. Also thinking Siza had Einstein's bomb plans, Iranians kidnapped him, stole the document and took them both to Iran.

Enter Iranian Ministry of Science employee, the beautiful Ariana Pakravan in Egypt where she approaches Portugal professor, Cryptologist Thomas Noronha and employs him to decipher the document.

Quickly Thomas' life is in peril. He is given ultimatums and deadlines from both the Iranian government and the CIA.

Ariana and Thomas become romantically involved and are involved in on again off again escapes from the Iranian captures.

The author uses characters ranging from Thomas' dying father, Manuel Noronha ; Professor Siza `s understudy professor Luis Rocha and Siza's college friend, Tibetan Monk, Tenzing Thubten to explain a plethora of scientific and theological terms, facts and postulations.

If you are interested in science, physics, mathematics, philosophy, chemistry and theology you may find something of interest in the Einstein Enigma. I certainly did and give that reading 4 stars.

On the other hand if you are looking for a mesmerizing suspense thriller to keep you riveted to a comfortable chair rapidly flipping the pages to a satisfying conclusion, I am afraid that you have the wrong book. That's a 2-star rating for me.

I read this book in Spanish, but that doesn't really affect my review.

This book was a fun read, but it has some serious flaws that (for me) got in the way of making it a fantastic read. It's modeled after Dan Brown's novels, and it COULD have been of the same caliber, but failed in many respects.

For one thing, the protagonist is amazingly stupid for a man who has a near-genius mathematician for a father, and is himself a historian, a cryptanalyst, and a PhD university professor. Our hero speaks several modern languages as well as possessing the ability to read several archaic ones, yet somehow he doesn't know the difference between Shiite and Sunni Islam, nor the difference between Farsi and Arabic, nor that Farsi is spoken in Iran and Arabic is spoken in Egypt. His knows almost nothing about computers (a cryptanalyst?). Admittedly the author wanted to explain a lot of these points to the reader, some of them arguably necessary for the plot and philosophical presentations that follow, but he did it at the expense of dumbing down the main character - never a good idea. None of the other characters are very well developed either.

I think the plot was created around the philosophical discussions the author wanted to present. For my taste, those discussions were the best part of the read, the storyline was only adequate. Unfortunately, like so many armchair cosmologists today, the author makes the typical mistake of concentrating only on external science and the rational conscious mind. Intelligence is reduced to quantitative factors only, and is completely explainable on the basis of increased complexity. His conglomeration hierarchy (mathematics -> physics -> chemistry -> biology -> psychology) is initially interesting, but it doesn't go deep enough. This superficiality allows a fanciful science-fiction conclusion (teleological speculation) in which carbon based intelligence (i.e. mankind) is eventually transferred to silicon based machines, something that is only believable if one has a superficial understanding of humanity. Once the unconscious psyche is taken into account, along with such "unimportant" qualities as bodily sensations (including sex), emotions, intuition, aesthetic appreciation, creative expression, perception of quality, etc., the whole premise seems a bit naive and childish. Why is it that the entire world appears ready to accept "dark energy" and "dark matter" as "reasonable" concepts, yet a soon as one speaks of the unconscious psyche it's considered suspicious, like magic or religion? Why is it that black holes are perfectly acceptable entities, but unconscious complexes are not? In both cases, all we ever get to observe is the event horizon.

Yes, Einstein was a genius, but he was a THEORETICAL physicist. He developed all of his amazing theories completely from intuition in his head, working them out in the domain of mathematics, and only after they were finished were they supported by physical evidence and astronomical discoveries. Where exactly does THAT kind of intelligence come from? And how do you transfer that into a computer program? Remember, mathematics doesn't grow on trees, nor is it found under rocks. It's a product of the human psyche. Modern astrophysicists know NOTHING about dark energy and dark matter. The existence of these concepts isn't even certain, the scientists are simply trying to make their existing mathematical models conform to disturbing empirical evidence. Maybe unconscious psychic energy is dark energy? Maybe this energy, whatever it is and wherever it comes from, is the non-determining factor in the otherwise completely determined universe described by Einstein's general theory of relativity? I don't know, nobody does, but in my opinion any cosmological vision that fails to take the human psyche into account (both conscious AND unconscious) is doomed to superficiality, because the human psyche is the fulcrum of ALL knowledge.

Another reviewer mentioned his concern regarding the apparent shallowness, stupidity and insensitivity of all the CIA characters in the novel, wondering if that's the way the rest of the world really views the agency and its policies. Gee, I don't know. I'm an American, and that's certainly the way I view them. I thought it was refreshing to read a novel that deliberately didn't present an American-centric perspective of our idiotic paranoia regarding national security.

I recommend this book, it's a fun read and for many people it may be an educational read as well. But it's more likely to be a page-turner for you if your inclined towards cosmology and science. If you're reading it just for the Dan Brown style spy plot complete with puzzles, it falls a bit short. Not terrible mind you, just not as good as it should have been, or could have been.

I read The Da Vinci Code, I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, The Da Vinci Code was a great read. However, The Einstein Enigma is no The Da Vinci Code.
--bonus points if you get the reference ;-)

Well, to sum up, I got this book from the Amazon Vine program in September of 2010, and I have been working my way through it painfully ever since then. I just never really got drawn into the plot, and thus I kept picking it up, reading partially through it for a while, then putting it down again to read something else.

This book tries to mimic The Da Vinci Code, and it does in the basic sense. The framework is there: mystery, famous figure from history, a major icon of religion (or in this case, a central figure of religion), and a main character good at unwrapping complicated stuff (in this case cryptology, instead of symbols).

However, where we had car chases, break-ins to Swiss banks, white-knuckled tension and suspense and genuine worry about the characters in Dan Brown's novel, in the Einstein Enigma, we get a see-saw up and down of basic-level physics and mathematics taught in the 6-9th grade levels (depending on school and skill level), intermingled with a plot that meanders far more than it should. We also get much more in the way of religious philosophy than Brown's novels toyed with. In Brown's novels, the history of the people dealing with the aftereffects of the religious artifacts was in question, not the basis of the artifacts themselves.

The book leads to a predictable conclusion -- the title of what Einstein was working on kind of gives it away -- and it is a decent book, but I found it to be too long on rambling dialog about not so interesting stuff, and too short on the interesting stuff.

3 stars.

This is a book for intellectuals. Of that there can be little doubt. Essentially, it's a heavy-weight discussion of topics in religion, philosophy, and physics (origins of the universe, intelligent design, etc.) with a plot wrapped around it. Despite the title, one doesn't get the intellectual vibe early in the story, which is a fairly basic espionage type offering. It's not until about the middle of the book where lengthy dialogs with mathematicians, physicists, and monks start to come in to play. You probably need to be interested in the subject matter (which I am) to be able to get through it all without feeling like the story has come to a screeching halt. If you can, though, there's a definite pull through the rest of the book to see where it's all going. I came away slightly disappointed with the conclusion, intellectually speaking, but not necessarily with how the story itself ends. Personally, if I were only rating the storyline and writing I'd probably give it 3 stars. Because I enjoyed the deep subject-matter, though, I'll go 4.