Final Theory is a 2008 techno-thriller novel written by Scientific American contributing 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 for the world, including the development of a weapon of mass destruction. Final Theory is Alpert's debut novel. Plot The narrative begins with a brutal attack on the aged theoretical physicist Hans Walther Kleinman. Kleinman is rushed to the hospital and summons his former student David Swift, now a professor at Columbia University. Just before dying, Kleinman pulls Swift close and wheezes two words in German: "Einheitliche Feldtheorie" and a sequence of numbers. It is revealed that the German phrase refers to the unified field theory developed by Einstein during his later years. Swift is intimidated by Lucille Parker, a sixtyish FBI Agent who is also after the theory. Swift meets with his old friend Monique Reynolds, a string theorist at Princeton University. Swift learns of the deaths of two close students of Einstein. The sequence of numbers points to The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University where another close student of Einstein, Amil Gupta, worked. At CMU they meet Gupta. Knowing that the FBI has been following them, they head for a hunting cabin in West Virginia, where Kleinman spent some time a few years ago. They are followed by FBI Agent Brock and by Simon, the assassin who killed Kleinman. Simon soon arrives and takes the weak Gupta and Brock. It is revealed that Simon is in fact working for Gupta. Swift's company escapes and meets with Gupta's daughter, Elizabeth Gupta. She tells them that Kleinman worked for a while at Fort Benning. At Fort Benning, they search for the theory in a combat training simulation called Warfighter. They escape into the mountains nearby, with the theory saved to a flash drive. In reading the contents of the flash drive, Swift and Reynolds discover why Einstein concealed his discovery: the theory, if put into practice, can trigger a violent warping of the local spacetime, leading to release of huge amounts of energy which can be used as a weapon. They destroy the flash drive before discovering that Gupta's son Michael, who has autism, has memorized the whole theory. The FBI soon arrives and they escape. Monique