Properties of Light

A thought provoking novel about the connection between the passion for knowledge and the desire to love from award–winning author Rebecca Goldstein.

A New York Times Notable Book


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 entangled within 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 desire 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 protégé. 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. Their shared obsession 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.


"A passionate love story rendered with dazzling intelligence." —Award–winning author Maureen Howard

"Daring . . . startling . . . breathtakingly surprising." —New York