Einstein's Bridge is a hard science fiction

Hard science fiction

Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Islands of Space in Astounding Science...

 novel by John G. Cramer

John G. Cramer

John G. Cramer is a professor of physics at the University of Washington in Seattle, the United States. When not teaching, he works with the STAR detector at the new Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the particle accelerator at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland...

, first published in June 1997.

The plot revolves around three central human characters, George Griffen, Roger Coulton, and Alice Lang. Set in 1987 through 2004, the book details the efforts of physicist

Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

s George and Roger as they work to bring the Superconducting Super Collider

Superconducting Super Collider

The Superconducting Super Collider was a particle accelerator complex under construction in the vicinity of Waxahachie, Texas that was set to be world's largest and most energetic, surpassing the current record held by the Large Hadron Collider. Its planned ring circumference was with an energy...

 (SSC) online in Waxahachie, Texas

Waxahachie, Texas

Waxahachie is a city in Ellis County, Texas, United States, and a southern suburb of Dallas. The population was 21,426 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Ellis County....

. Alice is a novelist, working on her latest horror effort, who becomes involved as she researches material for her book at the SSC. She and George fall in love just as preliminary trial runs of the SSC produce an unexplained phenomenon: a Snark, to borrow an expression from Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

, or an impossible event, in the form of a heavy particle

Elementary particle

In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a particle not known to have substructure; that is, it is not known to be made up of smaller particles. If an elementary particle truly has no substructure, then it is one of the basic building blocks of the universe from which...

 which emerged from the planned head-on collision between two 20 TeV proton

Proton

The proton is a subatomic particle with the symbol or and a positive electric charge of 1 elementary charge. One or more protons are present in the nucleus of each atom, along with neutrons. The number of protons in each atom is its atomic number....

s inside the SSC.

In addition to violating physical law

Physical law

A physical law or scientific law is "a theoretical principle deduced from particular facts, applicable to a defined group or class of phenomena, and expressible by the statement that a particular phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions be present." Physical laws are typically conclusions...

s such as the conservation of mass

Conservation of mass

The law of conservation of mass, also known as the principle of mass/matter conservation, states that the mass of an isolated system will remain constant over time...

, this particle emits pulses of radioactivity

Radioactive decay

Radioactive decay is the process by which an atomic nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting ionizing particles . The emission is spontaneous, in that the atom decays without any physical interaction with another particle from outside the atom...

, spelling out the numerical prime number

Prime number

A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. A natural number greater than 1 that is not a prime number is called a composite number. For example 5 is prime, as only 1 and 5 divide it, whereas 6 is composite, since it has the divisors 2...

 sequence of 2-3-5-7-11-13-17-19-23-29-31-37. Therein begins the unraveling of an even greater mystery than the particle itself: a powerful intelligence is behind this event, seeking to communicate with Humankind, which has unwittingly announced itself to the universe through the powerful bursts of energy unleashed with the collisions of particles within the SSC. For a time, this first contact is made by a benevolent species. Another species is also working to make contact — a less benevolent species, whose intent may ultimately destroy the Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

 and perhaps even the fabric of the universe

Universe

The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...

.

Gradually, the reader realizes that the plot does not take place in our timeline but in an alternate history - one in which the Superconducting Super Collider was built in Texas (in our history, the project was cancelled in 1993 and never implemented) and in which American forces invaded Baghdad and overthrew Saddam Hussein already during the Gulf war of 1991. The sinister significance of all this, and the relation of this alternate history to ours, become clear in the climactic last part of the book.