If that leaves you thinking that the book sounds really weird, then you are completely underestimating how thoroughly bizarre the book is. It is not the actual Frances Cleveland he has sex with, but one of the manikins from the exhibits at the museum which come to life when no visitors are present. The Teddy Roosevelt that he meets also is just a manikin. The man at the museum who looks like Lincoln, on the other hand, is not a manikin come to life but the actual Abraham Lincoln who was rescued from Ford's Theater using time travel. (T. also travels in time. He and Frankie, whom he calls Squaw since he first met her in an exhibit about Native Americans, travel back in time and successfully prevent Woodrow Wilson from becoming president.) And then T. realizes that one of the dummies in an exhibit is a future version of himself who has died in World War II (which hasn't even started yet) and... Like I said, if you haven't read it yet, then you are probably underestimating the weirdness of this book.

Vidal knows enough about American history and has sufficiently strong political views that a reader interested those subjects can find ideas to "chew on" in this book, even if they may not entirely agree with all that he has to say. (At first, I had no idea why Vidal chose to portray Grover Cleveland's wife having sex with a 13 year old boy. But, having read her biography -- which I probably wouldn't have done otherwise -- I now have some ideas. FYI Her future husband first met her when she was an infant and he was 27. He bought a baby carriage for her parents and became her guardian when her father died, then married her when she was 21 and he was 49.)

As for math and science, however, I'm afraid Vidal does not have much valuable to say. He understood that Einstein found mathematical formulas that said some surprising things about particles, energy, time and space. The formulas that T. was scribbling in his algebra class that brought him to the attention of the project in the first place were "E=mc² to the enth". No explanation of what that means, but apparently it is difficult to achieve while easy enough for a math teacher to recognize. And, as far as this novel is concerned, that means "anything goes". If you want a way to see into the future, change the past, clone people, or make a bomb that destroys buildings without hurting people (yes, that's what I meant, not vice versa), you just need someone to find the right formula and say that it's now possible.

Here is one brief sample:

Note: It was Vijay Fafat who told me about this work of mathematical fiction way back in 2012. However, his e-mail message arrived at an unfortunate time and was misplaced. I only rediscovered that message in 2021 and am working my way through the many suggestions it contained. I am very grateful to Vijay for the suggestion and also very sorry that it has taken me so long to act upon it.