Final Theory (novel)
Encyclopedia
Final Theory is a 2008 techno-thriller
novel written by Scientific American
editor Mark Alpert and published by Touchstone Books. The novel fictitiously posits that Albert Einstein
actually achieved his life's ambition of discovering a unified field theory
. If he had been successful in developing this theory, it would have large consequences to the world, including the development of a weapon of mass destruction. Final Theory is Alpert's debut novel
.
Hans Walther Kleinman by Simon. Simon was acting on the orders of the mysterious Henry Cobb to extract information on the Einheitliche Feldtheorie - the unified theory that Einstein worked during his last years. Dr.Kleinman was one of the four close students of Einstein and one of the secret keepers of the great theory. David Swift, a former student of Kleinman, and a professor of History of Science
at Columbia University
was summoned to the hospital where Kleinman was undergoing intensive care after his attack. Just before succumbing, he pulls David close and wheezes two words in German: "Einheitliche Feldtheorie" and tells him a sequence of numbers. Soon, Swift is intimidated by Lucille Parker, a sixtyish FBI Agent who is also after the theory. Simon attacks the garage where the FBI held David, and David escapes.
Meanwhile, FBI takes Karen, David's ex-wife and his son Jonah into custody. David on the other hand, succeeds in boarding a train headed for Princeton. He decides to meet an old friend of his, Monique Reynolds a string theorist
at Princeton University
. Monique at first is skeptical about his story. David soon comes to know of the deaths of two close students of Einstein, Jacques Bouchet of the University of Paris
and Alastair MacDonald, who was under treatment for mental disorder. The sequence of numbers that Kleinman gave David, pointed to the location of The Robotics Institute
at Carnegie Mellon University
where another close student of Einstein, Amil Gupta worked. They decided to tell him the news, and head to Pittsburgh. Simon and the FBI succeeds in following them to CMU.
At CMU they meet Gupta. Gupta's late wife was a Holocaust Survivor whom Einstein had helped to bring to Princeton
after World War II
. His only daughter is a drug addict and he lives with his autistic grandson, Michael who is obsessed with playing Warfighter - a program used for combat training. Knowing that FBI has been following them, David, Monique, Gupta and Michael, escapes in a H1lander. They head for a hunting cabin in West Virginia
, where Kleinman spent some time a few years ago with Gupta and Michael. On the way Simon chases them, and narrowly avoids an accident. Meanwhile Karen and Jonah are released by the FBI. Lucille Parker discovering David's escape, sends Agent Brock (who also works for Henry Cobb) and an assistant to the cabin. On the computer in the cabin, David's group finds references to Gupta's daughter's residence in Columbus, Georgia
. They are soon intimidated by Brock and his assistant. In the commotion that follows, Brock's partner dies and Brock and Gupta get seriously wounded. David, Monique and Michael escapes from the cabin on Gupta's suggestion. Meanwhile, seeing that the FBI is getting nowhere with the case, the Delta Force
is asked to take over. Simon soon arrives and takes the weak Gupta and Brock. He takes Gupta to a local doctor and saves his life, where Gupta tells him that he is Henry Cobb.
Meanwhile David's company is rescued by a group of hunters who gives them shelter. They soon head toward Columbus. They meet Gupta's daughter, Elizabeth Gupta - a drug addict who works as a prostitute. She is agitated on the mention of her fathers name and tells them that Kleinman (who was her godfather) hated him. She also tells them that Kleinman worked for a while in the VCS (Virtual Combat Simulation) office in Fort Benning
. David decides to go to Fort Benning thinking that Kleinman hid the theory in one of the computers there. Meanwhile, the FBI arrives in Columbus and Lucille Parker succeeds in tracing them to Fort Benning.
David's party arrives at Fort Benning and gets access to VCS Office. David with the help of a VR
goggles starts playing Warfighter, hoping to find the theory in one of the levels. Meanwhile, Gupta also enters Warfighter remotely and tries to get hold of the theory. David attempts to sabotage Gupta's plan and in the process, erases Warfighter and the theory. But Kleinman had built an escape hatch for the file which saved the data on a flash drive. They escape with the flash drive into the mountains nearby. During this time, Brock succeeds in abducting Karen and Jonah.
David and Monique starts reading the contents of the flash drive. Einstein had used differential topology
to describe the unified field equation in the theory. He had found out that all particles are geons and had successfully predicted the mass of all fundamental particles, which was one of the hallmarks of a theory of everything. Einstein had built his unified theory around the Holographic Principle
. He had worked out the exact equations for the universe (as a brane), how it evolved and explained how everything got started. If our brane was twisted enough one could sent particle's
from one point in the universe to another. The returning particles can trigger a violent warping of the local spacetime, leading to release of huge amounts of energy which can be used as a weapon. Einstein had worked out equations for all this. This was the reason why he never published this theory.
David then realized why Simon and the FBI were after him. They destroy the flash drive, in an attempt to destroy the theory. But Kleinman had made Michael memorize the whole theory. David realized that the numbers that Kleinman whispered to him pointed to Michael and not to Gupta. The FBI soon arrives and they escape. Monique is soon caught by Gupta and Simon. David is also intimidated by Gupta using his son and ex-wife as hostages. He along with two of his former students, had devised a plan to send particles like in the theory. But he still needed the field equations in the theory. For making the particle beam, they had decided to use the Tevatron
in Fermilab
. They soon reach Fermilab and takes over the Tevatron control room. Meanwhile, Brock is left with David, Monique, Karen and Jonah. In a fight between David and Brock, Brock falls into burning mineral oil and dies.
Although Gupta's interests were purely academic, Simon wanted to revenge the murder of his wife and children by the US troops and decides to use the technology against the country. He locks Gupta in a room and proceeds to take control of the experiment. David, meanwhile was devising a plan to shut down the Tevatron. He succeeds in shutting down the Tevatron by smashing the beam pipe and in the process kills Simon. Meanwhile, Gupta becomes hysterical and kills people near him with an Uzi. The FBI agents soon kill Gupta. Michael is left to the custody of Monique who gets engaged to David.
's Janet Maslin criticized the novel by saying "Though its dialogue sometimes name-drops quarks and geons, nobody in "Final Theory" sounds so smart once the running begins...And the book’s scientific expertise is eventually neutralized by that blunt, overall style". The Sunday Times
spoke of the book as "an entertaining, if fairly predictable, chase, laced with murder and mayhem...a lightspeed read with not too much mass". Douglas Preston
described the book as "One of the finest science-based thrillers to appear in a long time".
Techno-thriller
Techno-thrillers are a hybrid genre, drawing subject matter generally from spy/action thrillers, fantasy/war novels, and science fiction...
novel written by Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
editor Mark Alpert and published by Touchstone Books. The novel fictitiously posits that Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
actually achieved his life's ambition of discovering a unified field theory
Theory of everything
A theory of everything is a putative theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena, and predicts the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out in principle....
. If he had been successful in developing this theory, it would have large consequences to the world, including the development of a weapon of mass destruction. Final Theory is Alpert's debut novel
Debut novel
A debut novel is the first novel an author publishes. Debut novels are the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to publish in the future...
.
Synopsis
The narrative begins with the brutal attack on the aged theoretical physicistTheoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics which employs mathematical models and abstractions of physics to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena...
Hans Walther Kleinman by Simon. Simon was acting on the orders of the mysterious Henry Cobb to extract information on the Einheitliche Feldtheorie - the unified theory that Einstein worked during his last years. Dr.Kleinman was one of the four close students of Einstein and one of the secret keepers of the great theory. David Swift, a former student of Kleinman, and a professor of History of Science
History of science
The history of science is the study of the historical development of human understandings of the natural world and the domains of the social sciences....
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
was summoned to the hospital where Kleinman was undergoing intensive care after his attack. Just before succumbing, he pulls David close and wheezes two words in German: "Einheitliche Feldtheorie" and tells him a sequence of numbers. Soon, Swift is intimidated by Lucille Parker, a sixtyish FBI Agent who is also after the theory. Simon attacks the garage where the FBI held David, and David escapes.
Meanwhile, FBI takes Karen, David's ex-wife and his son Jonah into custody. David on the other hand, succeeds in boarding a train headed for Princeton. He decides to meet an old friend of his, Monique Reynolds a string theorist
String theory
String theory is an active research framework in particle physics that attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. It is a contender for a theory of everything , a manner of describing the known fundamental forces and matter in a mathematically complete system...
at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. Monique at first is skeptical about his story. David soon comes to know of the deaths of two close students of Einstein, Jacques Bouchet of the University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
and Alastair MacDonald, who was under treatment for mental disorder. The sequence of numbers that Kleinman gave David, pointed to the location of The Robotics Institute
Robotics Institute
The Robotics Institute is a division of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is considered to be one of the leading centers of robotics research in the world....
at Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
where another close student of Einstein, Amil Gupta worked. They decided to tell him the news, and head to Pittsburgh. Simon and the FBI succeeds in following them to CMU.
At CMU they meet Gupta. Gupta's late wife was a Holocaust Survivor whom Einstein had helped to bring to Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. His only daughter is a drug addict and he lives with his autistic grandson, Michael who is obsessed with playing Warfighter - a program used for combat training. Knowing that FBI has been following them, David, Monique, Gupta and Michael, escapes in a H1lander. They head for a hunting cabin in West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
, where Kleinman spent some time a few years ago with Gupta and Michael. On the way Simon chases them, and narrowly avoids an accident. Meanwhile Karen and Jonah are released by the FBI. Lucille Parker discovering David's escape, sends Agent Brock (who also works for Henry Cobb) and an assistant to the cabin. On the computer in the cabin, David's group finds references to Gupta's daughter's residence in Columbus, Georgia
Columbus, Georgia
Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Muscogee County, Georgia, United States, with which it is consolidated. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 189,885. It is the principal city of the Columbus, Georgia metropolitan area, which, in 2009, had an estimated population of 292,795...
. They are soon intimidated by Brock and his assistant. In the commotion that follows, Brock's partner dies and Brock and Gupta get seriously wounded. David, Monique and Michael escapes from the cabin on Gupta's suggestion. Meanwhile, seeing that the FBI is getting nowhere with the case, the Delta Force
Delta Force
1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta is one of the United States' secretive Tier One counter-terrorism and Special Mission Units. Commonly known as Delta Force, Delta, or The Unit, it was formed under the designation 1st SFOD-D, and is officially referred to by the Department of Defense...
is asked to take over. Simon soon arrives and takes the weak Gupta and Brock. He takes Gupta to a local doctor and saves his life, where Gupta tells him that he is Henry Cobb.
Meanwhile David's company is rescued by a group of hunters who gives them shelter. They soon head toward Columbus. They meet Gupta's daughter, Elizabeth Gupta - a drug addict who works as a prostitute. She is agitated on the mention of her fathers name and tells them that Kleinman (who was her godfather) hated him. She also tells them that Kleinman worked for a while in the VCS (Virtual Combat Simulation) office in Fort Benning
Fort Benning
Fort Benning is a United States Army post located southeast of the city of Columbus in Muscogee and Chattahoochee counties in Georgia and Russell County, Alabama...
. David decides to go to Fort Benning thinking that Kleinman hid the theory in one of the computers there. Meanwhile, the FBI arrives in Columbus and Lucille Parker succeeds in tracing them to Fort Benning.
David's party arrives at Fort Benning and gets access to VCS Office. David with the help of a VR
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
goggles starts playing Warfighter, hoping to find the theory in one of the levels. Meanwhile, Gupta also enters Warfighter remotely and tries to get hold of the theory. David attempts to sabotage Gupta's plan and in the process, erases Warfighter and the theory. But Kleinman had built an escape hatch for the file which saved the data on a flash drive. They escape with the flash drive into the mountains nearby. During this time, Brock succeeds in abducting Karen and Jonah.
David and Monique starts reading the contents of the flash drive. Einstein had used differential topology
Differential topology
In mathematics, differential topology is the field dealing with differentiable functions on differentiable manifolds. It is closely related to differential geometry and together they make up the geometric theory of differentiable manifolds.- Description :...
to describe the unified field equation in the theory. He had found out that all particles are geons and had successfully predicted the mass of all fundamental particles, which was one of the hallmarks of a theory of everything. Einstein had built his unified theory around the Holographic Principle
Holographic principle
The holographic principle is a property of quantum gravity and string theories which states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a boundary to the region—preferably a light-like boundary like a gravitational horizon...
. He had worked out the exact equations for the universe (as a brane), how it evolved and explained how everything got started. If our brane was twisted enough one could sent particle's
Sterile neutrino
Sterile neutrinosIn scientific literature, these particles are also variously referred to as right-handed neutrinos, inert neutrinos, heavy neutrinos, or neutral heavy leptons . are a hypothetical type of neutrino that do not interact via any of the fundamental interactions of the Standard Model...
from one point in the universe to another. The returning particles can trigger a violent warping of the local spacetime, leading to release of huge amounts of energy which can be used as a weapon. Einstein had worked out equations for all this. This was the reason why he never published this theory.
David then realized why Simon and the FBI were after him. They destroy the flash drive, in an attempt to destroy the theory. But Kleinman had made Michael memorize the whole theory. David realized that the numbers that Kleinman whispered to him pointed to Michael and not to Gupta. The FBI soon arrives and they escape. Monique is soon caught by Gupta and Simon. David is also intimidated by Gupta using his son and ex-wife as hostages. He along with two of his former students, had devised a plan to send particles like in the theory. But he still needed the field equations in the theory. For making the particle beam, they had decided to use the Tevatron
Tevatron
The Tevatron is a circular particle accelerator in the United States, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , just east of Batavia, Illinois, and is the second highest energy particle collider in the world after the Large Hadron Collider...
in Fermilab
Fermilab
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics...
. They soon reach Fermilab and takes over the Tevatron control room. Meanwhile, Brock is left with David, Monique, Karen and Jonah. In a fight between David and Brock, Brock falls into burning mineral oil and dies.
Although Gupta's interests were purely academic, Simon wanted to revenge the murder of his wife and children by the US troops and decides to use the technology against the country. He locks Gupta in a room and proceeds to take control of the experiment. David, meanwhile was devising a plan to shut down the Tevatron. He succeeds in shutting down the Tevatron by smashing the beam pipe and in the process kills Simon. Meanwhile, Gupta becomes hysterical and kills people near him with an Uzi. The FBI agents soon kill Gupta. Michael is left to the custody of Monique who gets engaged to David.
Characters
- David Swift : A professor of the History of ScienceHistory of scienceThe history of science is the study of the historical development of human understandings of the natural world and the domains of the social sciences....
at Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. - Monique Reynolds: A string theorist at Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
and friend of Swift. - Amil Gupta/Henry Cobb: A close student of Einstein and chief antagonist of the story.
- Hans Kleinman: A close student of Einstein and Swift's former mentor.
- Michael: Gupta's autistic grandson.
- Simon: The assassin and shtarker employed by Gupta.
- Elizabeth Gupta: Gupta's daughter.
- Karen: ex-wife of Swift.
- Jonah: son of Swift.
- Agent Brock: FBI Agent who also works for Gupta.
- Lucille Parker: FBI Agent in charge.
Reception
The novel received mixed reviews. The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
's Janet Maslin criticized the novel by saying "Though its dialogue sometimes name-drops quarks and geons, nobody in "Final Theory" sounds so smart once the running begins...And the book’s scientific expertise is eventually neutralized by that blunt, overall style". The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
spoke of the book as "an entertaining, if fairly predictable, chase, laced with murder and mayhem...a lightspeed read with not too much mass". Douglas Preston
Douglas Preston
Douglas Preston is an American author who has written seventeen popular techno-thriller and horror novels, four alone and the rest with Lincoln Child...
described the book as "One of the finest science-based thrillers to appear in a long time".