by Marie Benedict

This is Historical Fiction, but based on a real person who was the first wife of Albert Einstein and one of the few women of her time to have an education in Physics. Her name was Mileva Marić.

The story is told in first person and for me seemed very realistic, showing Mileva's background, interaction with parents and thoughts about achieving her educational ambitions, as well as her cultural influences in dealing with expectations for women, the interest of Albert Einstein, and her treatment at the Polytecnic in Switzerland where she studied as well as her belief that a foot deformity made her 'unmarriageable'.

I found the author's voice very engaging and soon got caught up in her tale, even looking up a few mentions of Mileva's life on Wikipedia. The story is mostly fiction based on bare bones scaffolding of known facts, yet it felt very plausible all the way through. Albert's personality came across as witty and charming in the beginning and I half fell in love with him myself, but later in the story he becomes an unsympathetic character which might be less than fair to him. Still, looking up what facts are known, why didn't he ever meet his daughter? Why did the relationship go awry in a time when divorce held almost as much stigma as unwed motherhood?

Anyone who has been in a relationship that went wrong will recognise the pattern of how these things often happen. Whether Albert used his wife's ideas and took full credit is something history and science will probably never be able to answer, but in the time and place where it is set, it is easy to imagine that any contribution from an intelligent female would likely be subsumed by a husband with the proper qualifications.

Mileva's life is not a happy one and history doesn't give us a happy ending for her, but I very much enjoyed reading this story. Factual or not, the writing was very engaging and 'm glad to know of the existence of this woman whom I had never heard of before. Whatever contributions she might or might not have contributed to Einstein's theories, she stands out as a strong woman in history who dared to step into the male preserve of higher education, helping to forge the way for many women in generations to come. I will definitely be interested in anything else this author writes.

by Irving Belateche

This is a fascinating story with enough fact mixed into the fiction to make the reader wonder where one stops and the other starts.

When Albert Einstein died on April 18, 1955, his last words were uttered in German to a nurse who did not understand the language. He had been writing something, and this is where reality and fiction diverge. In the story, what he had been writing was a series of equations and the story is told from the point of view of Jacob, a university professor, who believes that those equations hold the secret to time travel.

The early chapters relate his experience of obsession with Einstein's theories and attempts to track down clues that might shed light on the equations and those elusive last words that were never recorded.

Jacob isn't the only person with an interest. In a mind bending series of alternate realities and changed time sequences, contemporaries of Einstein as well as university researchers known to Jacob crisscross time paths, discovering that small changes in events don't have the far reaching effects depicted in science fiction, but change the personal histories of those directly involved.

This is the kind of time travel I like best, because it makes me think and presents theories of time travel Physics that seem just plausible enough to make a good story. There is an aspect of espionage in this one that makes it gripping and fast paced in the later chapters, while making the reader question the nature of reality. An easy five stars!

Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions

by Robert L. Wolke

What Einstein Didn't Know is not just a book filled with trivial facts about science and nature, but explanations for why things happen as they do. The fun starts right away in the table of contents where you can see the interesting selection of pieces of information that comprise this most fascinating book.

Examples include; chemicals that make water hot or cold and why, how dry ice works, what the term 'proof' means on an alcohol bottle and where the term came from, what is used to fortify cereals with iron in a non-toxic form, what makes the foam on your Starbucks coffee, the difference between incandescent and fluorescent lights as well as LEDs, how to read bulb packages and a nifty conversion for those who remember incandescent bulbs in watts (for example, an old 40 watt bulb is 500 lumens) and how to tell if a crab is male or female. And that's just the first chapter!

Further chapters cover information about how things work in the kitchen or around the house, the infernal combustion engine, the great outdoors, water, and the basic laws of nature. Do you know how infrared radiation works to allow thermo-imaging devices to make it possible for us to see in the dark? I do now, because I've read this book. Everything from ocean breezes to the reason for optimum hours to get sunburn is explained in easy and often amusing terms. There is even a section in the back to explain buzzwords, those scientific terms that build your vocabulary and comprise part of the language of science.

This is a book to read in segments, at least for me. Too much information at once can get lost in the assimilation, but the pieces of information are fascinating and would make great fodder for pub quizzes. This is one I am likely to go back to for references many times and to read through again to remind myself of all the fascinating facts that I might have forgotten after the first reading.

Highly recommended!

Providing efficient service to its customers is the cornerstone of any business undertaking.  Businesses looking to cater to the needs of their customers in the most proficient way would require supercharging their sales team while making their sales processes streamlined and more efficient. This would require them to have in place a robust CRM system that could help businesses make informed decisions by helping consolidate data from multiple sources into one centralized location. While there is no dearth of good CRM solutions, Salesforce continues to reign the CRM space due to the plethora of customizable features and functionalities offered by it. Apart from the robust features, users can seek post-implementation Salesforce support to make the most of this innovative platform.  

As a rapidly growing or an enterprise-sized company, it’s highly recommended to implement Salesforces’ service cloud solution within your business environment. Besides improving efficiency, the service cloud solution will help accelerate sales productivity, which in turn can help accelerate sales productivity, build a lead pipeline, close deals quickly while making sense of all the relevant data available. Built on the Salesforce Customer 360 platform, the sales cloud platform is designed to help businesses find new customers, deliver real-time information and increase lead conversions. But what if you could get more and better results out of this robust automation tool by Salesforce?  

Let’s take a quick glimpse at the ways in which you can get the most out of your Sales cloud solution: 

Customization:  By customizing the sales cloud, you will be able to sell just the way you want. By aligning the robust automation tool with your processes, the overall sales process will run more seamlessly, following which your organization will witness a competitive edge. Whether you indulge in custom integration, custom development of apps or creating a mobile view, you can surely make the most out of your Sales cloud investment.  

Integration: A lot of data is generated when multiple tools are being used by sales reps to perform various sales activities and are being stored in different locations. This makes it difficult to get a comprehensive view of customer data. By integrating the Sales cloud with other applications, processes can be simplified. In fact, you can draw a lot from your Sales cloud implementation by integrating with AppExchange, Email, ERP, e-commerce platforms, CTI or any other third-party solutions. With an integrated sales cloud, businesses can enjoy connected and intelligent customer experiences that too across various touchpoints.  

Automation: Users of the Sales cloud have the option to automate most of their processes rather than performing the tasks manually. By taking the right actions at the right time along with several workflows and approval automation, Sales reps can focus on core sales activities. They can also seek approval from chatter feeds, design processes, etc. by using the drag and drop feature.  

Innovate: By leveraging the Salesforce sales cloud, sales team can streamline their work and make it easy by getting new workflows and customizations done. Developers performing these customizations can test changes in sandboxes before placing them in the production org. With efficiency and quality ensured, Sales cloud paves way for innovation.  

Expertise: Since, the implementation and management of the sales cloud require a certain level of expertise, it’s prudent to partner with experts who can help you make the most of this investment.  

Conclusion:  

It can be inferred that with a Sales Cloud solution integrated within a business ecosystem, organizations are sure to witness a significant increase in revenue. The aforementioned key actions will not just add more value to your Sales Cloud but will also improve your sales numbers. To avail Salesforce consulting services, it’s prudent to partner with a reliable Salesforce development company.   

Source - https://www.vingle.net/posts/2771678