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In the wonderland realm described by Einstein's theory of special relativity, simultaneity generally proves to be an illusion, but in the world of publishing, two good studies of the same subject will often appear at roughly the same time. Then, alas, a variant of another scientific doctrine -- Gresham's law -- typically goes into effect: One book tends to drive out the other.
Walter Isaacson's hefty biography of Albert Einstein (1879-1955) appears with lots of panoply -- including 11 blurbs by noted scientists and biographers -- and the author provides a thorough and patient account of a great thinker's life and achievements. The tone is rightly admiring, though fully aware of the saintly scientist's darker side -- at least one illegitimate child, several mistresses, a coldness to his family that verged on heartlessness and cruelty. The prose is straightforward and clear, essential when explaining complex ideas, though sometimes feeling airless or straitjacketed, as if Isaacson were afraid of making a mistake or showing any personal feeling. Like other popularizers before him, he works hard to explain Einstein's conceptual breakthroughs and to lay out his decades-long arguments with Niels Bohr and the progenitors of quantum mechanics. For, sad to say, after the age of 40, this once-revolutionary thinker grew increasingly conservative and stuck in his ways, never bringing himself to fully accept indeterminacy, uncertainty and chance as the secret governors of the universe. In a famous catchphrase, Einstein couldn't believe that God played with dice, and for decades he kept up the search for a "unified field theory" that would make sense of everything. Einstein: His Life and Universe covers all this and much else in a painstaking and reliable biography. You won't go wrong in reading and learning from it.
But Jurgen Neffe's exhilarating Einstein: A Biography is a lot more fun. At first, Neffe might sound like a German counterpart to Isaacson. Both are distinguished journalists, Neffe having won the Egon Erwin Kisch Award, "the most prestigious award for print journalism in Germany." While Isaacson is currently the CEO of the Aspen Institute, the German writer is affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. The Neffe biography was even a bestseller in Germany, as Isaacson's earlier life of Benjamin Franklin was in the United States. Yet the two authors approach Albert Einstein quite differently, the American having written a rather stolid, even "Teutonic" study, while the German has produced a much jazzier one.
Neffe's zingy, dramatic style -- for which we must offer congratulations to his translator, Shelley Frisch -- sometimes calls to mind the New Yorker's John McPhee: His pages are rich in odd facts, take us deep into what one might call the Einstein industry and display both reverence for the genius and lèse-majesté before the man. While Isaacson diligently marches us through Einstein's life, thought and career, Neffe tends to be more freewheeling and thematic -- one of his chapters is titled "How Albert Became Einstein: The Psychological Makeup of a Genius"; another is called "The Burden of Inheritance: Einstein Detectives in Action." Yet Neffe's swagger and ease don't hide the fact that he's mastered a vast amount of material: He knows 20th-century German history, the development of physics since Galileo, the work of contemporary psychologists and philosophers on the nature of genius and media celebrity. Virtually all of Isaacson's references are to publications in English, and his book sometimes feels like a reporter's distillation of what others have discovered. By contrast, Neffe appears to have worked a bit harder and thought more for himself. For example, Isaacson tells us that Mozart was Einstein's favorite composer, but Neffe adds that the "Sonata for Piano and Violin in E Minor" was his favorite piece. He also discusses Einstein's cultural tastes, which were so deeply old-fashioned that the physicist found nearly all 20th-century art and music utterly incomprehensible or repellent, especially the works influenced by his own ideas. Furthermore, Neffe offers detailed information about the Einstein family's engineering business, which specialized in installing electric lighting, and shows how a boyhood spent around technical equipment influenced his later thought-experiments.
While discussing the crucial impact on the young Einstein's imagination of Aaron Bernstein's 20-volume Popular Books on Natural Science, Isaacson naturally draws on the major study in English of this formative reference work. But Neffe seems to have actually gone and read the books themselves, citing Bernstein more than 15 times, by volume and page number. He reveals through exact quotation how much Einstein's later formulations about gravity, light and space-time echo actual sentences from a child's introduction to the wonders of science. While the German's biography tends to focus on the youthful Einstein and on his cultural as well as scientific afterlife, Isaacson tells us more about the great man's years in America (from 1932 till his death), carefully narrates his involvement with the atomic bomb and movingly elucidates both his mature thinking about religion (God, he believed, could be found in the laws that ordered the universe) and his growing activism on behalf of world government. Isaacson's is, in this respect, the fuller life. But it would be a pity if his account completely overshadowed Neffe's, which is more personal, original and exciting. The latter, for instance, underscores that Einstein's English vocabulary was probably no more than a few hundred words and that the great man was often largely incomprehensible in our language. All his assistants at Princeton had to speak German.
For most of us, Albert Einstein remains the emblematic genius-holy man of modern science -- part Gandhi, part absent-minded professor, part wide-eyed child. (Neffe notes that Steven Spielberg modeled E.T.'s kindly and sorrowful eyes after those of Einstein.) In his later years at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the physicist probably did become something close to a "Jewish saint" and sage, as he's often been described, but both biographies portray the younger Einstein as a man of unexpected, and sometimes unlikable, contradictions and polarities. As a student, he got a classmate pregnant, sent her away to have the baby (which he refused to see) and then apparently made the young woman give up the child for adoption. He regarded both of his wives as essentially caretakers, their main obligation being to see to his domestic needs. In the case of his first wife, he compelled her to forgo a promising scientific career and then treated her shabbily. He hardly ever saw their mentally ill younger son, whom he dismissed as degenerate.
After claiming for years to despise all forms of nationalism, Einstein nonetheless became an enthusiastic Zionist. He spoke up strongly for pacifism throughout the 1920s, but once Hitler rose to power, he grew full of martial anti-Nazi ardor. This isn't to say that he was wrong to embrace his Jewish identity or to fear Hitler's evil, but his ideological flip-flops are nonetheless disconcerting. Similarly, he initiated the development of the atomic bomb as a weapon against the hated Third Reich, yet deplored its use on Japan. He was largely indifferent to the victims of Stalin's show trials and purges but strongly supported the Pugwash conferences for world peace. What's more, this childlike genius absolutely required full-time assistants, housekeepers and support staff to live his simple, Spartan life. He also clearly loved publicity, women and sleep (Neffe tells us he generally slept at least 10 hours a night and often took naps). Though Einstein's may be the very face of scientific genius, he never really advanced much in his thought after winning the Nobel Prize in 1921 and, despite being widely revered, gradually lost touch with the cutting edge of physics.
After finishing some biographies, readers often feel an increased admiration for the subject. This isn't true for Einstein. More and more, he seems almost as flawed a human being as Pablo Picasso, John F. Kennedy and so many other icons of the 20th century. Read either of these two books and that well-known face will never look quite the same again. Still, it probably doesn't matter very much. Einstein provides one case when we might surely say: It's the thought that counts.
Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
"Isaacson has managed the extraordinary feat of preserving Einstein's monumental stature while at the same time bringing him to such vivid life that we come to feel as if he could be walking in our midst." -- Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals
About the Author
Walter Isaacson is president of the Aspen Institute. He has been chairman and CEO of CNN and managing editor of TIME magazine. He is the author of several books including the US bestseller BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: AN AMERICAN LIFE.
From the Author
Walter Isaacson, University Professor of History at Tulane, has been CEO of the Aspen Institute, chairman of CNN, and editor of Time magazine. He is the author of Leonardo da Vinci; The Innovators; Steve Jobs; Einstein: His Life and Universe; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life; and Kissinger: A Biography, and the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. Facebook: Walter Isaacson, Twitter: @WalterIsaacson
Edward Herrmann's films include Nixon, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Annie, and The Aviator. On television's Gilmore Girls he starred as the patriarch, Richard Gilmore. He has also appeared on The Good Wife, Law & Order, 30 Rock, Grey's Anatomy, and Oz. He earned an Emmy Award for The Practice, and remains well-known for his Emmy-nominated portrayals of FDR in Eleanor and Franklin and Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years. On Broadway, he won a Tony Award for his performance in Mrs. Warren's Profession.
Review
"Walter Isaacson has captured the complete Einstein. With an effortless style that belies a sharp attention to detail and scientific accuracy, Isaacson takes us on a soaring journey through the life, mind, and science of the man who changed our view of the universe." -- Brian Greene, Professor of Physics at Columbia and author of The Fabric of the Cosmos
"This book does an amazing job getting the science right and the man revealed." -- Sylvester James Gates, Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland
"This book will be widely and deservedly admired. It is excellently readable and combines the personal and the scientific aspects of Einstein's life in a graceful way." -- Gerald Holton, Professor of Physics at Harvard and author of Einstein, History, and Other Passions
"Once again Walter Isaacson has produced a most valuable biography of a great man about whom much has already been written. It helps that he has had access to important new material. He met the challenge of dealing with his subject as a human being and describing profound ideas in physics. His biography is a pleasure to read and makes the great physicist come alive." -- Murray Gell-Mann, winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics and author of The Quark and the Jaguar
"With unmatched narrative skill, Isaacson has managed the extraordinary feat of preserving Einstein's monumental stature while at the same time bringing him to such vivid life that we come to feel as if he could be walking in our midst. This is a terrific work." -- Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
"Isaacson's treatment of Einstein's scientific work is excellent: accurate, complete, and just the right level of detail for the general reader. Taking advantage of the wealth of recently uncovered historical material, he has produced the most readable biography of Einstein yet." -- A. Douglas Stone, Professor of Physics at Yale
"This is a brilliant intellectual tapestry -- and a great read. Skillfully weaving Einstein's revolutionary scientific achievements, his prolific political initiatives, his complex personal life, and his fascinating personality, Isaacson has transformed the transformer of the twentieth century into a beacon for the twenty-first century." -- Martin J. Sherwin, coauthor of American Prometheus:The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for biography
"I found so much to admire; there are many places where I just had to cheer what Isaacson had written." -- Dudley Herschbach, Professor of Science at Harvard
"Isaacson has written a crisp, engaging, and refreshing biography, one that beautifully masters the historical literature and offers many new insights into Einstein's work and life." -- Diana Kormos Buchwald, General Editor of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein
"Isaacson has admirably succeeded in weaving together the complex threads of Einstein's personal and scientific life to paint a superb portrait." -- Arthur I. Miller, author of Einstein, Picasso
“I promise you four papers,” the young patent examiner wrote his friend. The letter would turn out to bear some of the most significant tidings in the history of science, but its momentous nature was masked by an impish tone that was typical of its author. He had, after all, just addressed his friend as “you frozen whale” and apologized for writing a letter that was “inconsequential babble.” Only when he got around to describing the papers, which he had produced during his spare time, did he give some indication that he sensed their significance.1
“The first deals with radiation and the energy properties of light and is very revolutionary,” he explained. Yes, it was indeed revolutionary. It argued that light could be regarded not just as a wave but also as a stream of tiny particles called quanta. The implications that would eventually arise from this theory—a cosmos without strict causality or certainty—would spook him for the rest of his life.
“The second paper is a determination of the true sizes of atoms.” Even though the very existence of atoms was still in dispute, this was the most straightforward of the papers, which is why he chose it as the safest bet for his latest attempt at a doctoral thesis. He was in the process of revolutionizing physics, but he had been repeatedly thwarted in his efforts to win an academic job or even get a doctoral degree, which he hoped might get him promoted from a third- to a second-class examiner at the patent office.
The third paper explained the jittery motion of microscopic particles in liquid by using a statistical analysis of random collisions. In the process, it established that atoms and molecules actually exist.
“The fourth paper is only a rough draft at this point, and is an electrodynamics of moving bodies which employs a modification of the theory of space and time.” Well, that was certainly more than inconsequential babble. Based purely on thought experiments—performed in his head rather than in a lab—he had decided to discard Newton’s concepts of absolute space and time. It would become known as the Special Theory of Relativity.
What he did not tell his friend, because it had not yet occurred to him, was that he would produce a fifth paper that year, a short addendum to the fourth, which posited a relationship between energy and mass. Out of it would arise the best-known equation in all of physics: E=mc2.
Looking back at a century that will be remembered for its willingness to break classical bonds, and looking ahead to an era that seeks to nurture the creativity needed for scientific innovation, one person stands out as a paramount icon of our age: the kindly refugee from oppression whose wild halo of hair, twinkling eyes, engaging humanity, and extraordinary brilliance made his face a symbol and his name a synonym for genius. Albert Einstein was a locksmith blessed with imagination and guided by a faith in the harmony of nature’s handiwork. His fascinating story, a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom, reflects the triumphs and tumults of the modern era.
Now that his archives have been completely opened, it is possible to explore how the private side of Einstein—his nonconformist personality, his instincts as a rebel, his curiosity, his passions and detachments—intertwined with his political side and his scientific side. Knowing about the man helps us understand the wellsprings of his science, and vice versa. Character and imagination and creative genius were all related, as if part of some unified field.
Despite his reputation for being aloof, he was in fact passionate in both his personal and scientific pursuits. At college he fell madly in love with the only woman in his physics class, a dark and intense Serbian named Mileva Maric. They had an illegitimate daughter, then married and had two sons. She served as a sounding board for his scientific ideas and helped to check the math in his papers, but eventually their relationship disintegrated. Einstein offered her a deal. He would win the Nobel Prize someday, he said; if she gave him a divorce, he would give her the prize money. She thought for a week and accepted. Because his theories were so radical, it was seventeen years after his miraculous outpouring from the patent office before he was awarded the prize and she collected.
Einstein’s life and work reflected the disruption of societal certainties and moral absolutes in the modernist atmosphere of the early twentieth century. Imaginative nonconformity was in the air: Picasso, Joyce, Freud, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and others were breaking conventional bonds. Charging this atmosphere was a conception of the universe in which space and time and the properties of particles seemed based on the vagaries of observations.
Einstein, however, was not truly a relativist, even though that is how he was interpreted by many, including some whose disdain was tinged by anti-Semitism. Beneath all of his theories, including relativity, was a quest for invariants, certainties, and absolutes. There was a harmonious reality underlying the laws of the universe, Einstein felt, and the goal of science was to discover it.
His quest began in 1895, when as a 16-year-old he imagined what it would be like to ride alongside a light beam. A decade later came his miracle year, described in the letter above, which laid the foundations for the two great advances of twentieth-century physics: relativity and quantum theory.
A decade after that, in 1915, he wrested from nature his crowning glory, one of the most beautiful theories in all of science, the general theory of relativity. As with the special theory, his thinking had evolved through thought experiments. Imagine being in an enclosed elevator accelerating up through space, he conjectured in one of them. The effects you’d feel would be indistinguishable from the experience of gravity.
Gravity, he figured, was a warping of space and time, and he came up with the equations that describe how the dynamics of this curvature result from the interplay between matter, motion, and energy. It can be described by using another thought experiment. Picture what it would be like to roll a bowling ball onto the two-dimensional surface of a trampoline. Then roll some billiard balls. They move toward the bowling ball not because it exerts some mysterious attraction but because of the way it curves the trampoline fabric. Now imagine this happening in the four-dimensional fabric of space and time. Okay, it’s not easy, but that’s why we’re no Einstein and he was.
The exact midpoint of his career came a decade after that, in 1925, and it was a turning point. The quantum revolution he had helped to launch was being transformed into a new mechanics that was based on uncertainties and probabilities. He made his last great contributions to quantum mechanics that year but, simultaneously, began to resist it. He would spend the next three decades, ending with some equations scribbled while on his deathbed in 1955, stubbornly criticizing what he regarded as the incompleteness of quantum mechanics while attempting to subsume it into a unified field theory.
Both during his thirty years as a revolutionary and his subsequent thirty years as a resister, Einstein remained consistent in his willingness to be a serenely amused loner who was comfortable not conforming. Independent in his thinking, he was driven by an imagination that broke from the confines of conventional wisdom. He was that odd breed, a reverential rebel, and he was guided by a faith, which he wore lightly and with a twinkle in his eye, in a God who would not play dice by allowing things to happen by chance.
Einstein’s nonconformist streak was evident in his personality and politics as well. Although he subscribed to socialist ideals, he was too much of an individualist to be comfortable with excessive state control or centralized authority. His impudent instincts, which served him so well as a young scientist, made him allergic to nationalism, militarism, and anything that smacked of a herd mentality. And until Hitler caused him to revise his geopolitical equations, he was an instinctive pacifist who celebrated resistance to war.
His tale encompasses the vast sweep of modern science, from the infinitesimal to the infinite, from the emission of photons to the expansion of the cosmos. A century after his great triumphs, we are still living in Einstein’s universe, one defined on the macro scale by his theory of relativity and on the micro scale by a quantum mechanics that has proven durable even as it remains disconcerting.
His fingerprints are all over today’s technologies. Photoelectric cells and lasers, nuclear power and fiber optics, space travel, and even semiconductors all trace back to his theories. He signed the letter to Franklin Roosevelt warning that it may be possible to build an atom bomb, and the letters of his famed equation relating energy to mass hover in our minds when we picture the resulting mushroom cloud.
Einstein’s launch into fame, which occurred when measurements made during a 1919 eclipse confirmed his prediction of how much gravity bends light, coincided with, and contributed to, the birth of a new celebrity age. He became a scientific supernova and humanist icon, one of the most famous faces on the planet. The public earnestly puzzled over his theories, elevated him into a cult of genius, and canonized him as a secular saint.
If he did not have that electrified halo of hair and those piercing eyes, would he still have become science’s preeminent poster boy? Suppose, as a thought experiment, that he had looked like a Max Planck or a Niels Bohr. Would he have remained in their reputational orbit, that of a mere scientific genius? Or would he still have made the leap into the pantheon inhabited by Aristotle, Galileo, and Newton?2
The latter, I believe, is the case. His work had a very personal character, a stamp that made it recognizably his, the way a Picasso is recognizably a Picasso. He made imaginative leaps and discerned great principles through thought experiments rather than by methodical inductions based on experimental data. The theories that resulted were at times astonishing, mysterious, and counterintuitive, yet they contained notions that could capture the popular imagination: the relativity of space and time, E=mc2, the bending of light beams, and the warping of space.
Adding to his aura was his simple humanity. His inner security was tempered by the humility that comes from being awed by nature. He could be detached and aloof from those close to him, but toward mankind in general he exuded a true kindness and gentle compassion.
Yet for all of his popular appeal and surface accessibility, Einstein also came to symbolize the perception that modern physics was something that ordinary laymen could not comprehend, “the province of priest-like experts,” in the words of Harvard professor Dudley Herschbach.3 It was not always thus. Galileo and Newton were both great geniuses, but their mechanical cause-and-effect explanation of the world was something that most thoughtful folks could grasp. In the eighteenth century of Benjamin Franklin and the nineteenth century of Thomas Edison, an educated person could feel some familiarity with science and even dabble in it as an amateur.
A popular feel for scientific endeavors should, if possible, be restored given the needs of the twenty-first century. This does not mean that every literature major should take a watered-down physics course or that a corporate lawyer should stay abreast of quantum mechanics. Rather, it means that an appreciation for the methods of science is a useful asset for a responsible citizenry. What science teaches us, very significantly, is the correlation between factual evidence and general theories, something well illustrated in Einstein’s life.
In addition, an appreciation for the glories of science is a joyful trait for a good society. It helps us remain in touch with that childlike capacity for wonder, about such ordinary things as falling apples and elevators, that characterizes Einstein and other great theoretical physicists.4
That is why studying Einstein can be worthwhile. Science is inspiring and noble, and its pursuit an enchanting mission, as the sagas of its heroes remind us. Near the end of his life, Einstein was asked by the New York State Education Department what schools should emphasize. “In teaching history,” he replied, “there should be extensive discussion of personalities who benefited mankind through independence of character and judgment.”5 Einstein fits into that category.
At a time when there is a new emphasis, in the face of global competition, on science and math education, we should also note the other part of Einstein’s answer. “Critical comments by students should be taken in a friendly spirit,” he said. “Accumulation of material should not stifle the student’s independence.” A society’s competitive advantage will come not from how well its schools teach the multiplication and periodic tables, but from how well they stimulate imagination and creativity.
Therein lies the key, I think, to Einstein’s brilliance and the lessons of his life. As a young student he never did well with rote learning. And later, as a theorist, his success came not from the brute strength of his mental processing power but from his imagination and creativity. He could construct complex equations, but more important, he knew that math is the language nature uses to describe her wonders. So he could visualize how equations were reflected in realities—how the electromagnetic field equations discovered by James Clerk Maxwell, for example, would manifest themselves to a boy riding alongside a light beam. As he once declared, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”6
That approach required him to embrace nonconformity. “Long live impudence!” he exulted to the lover who would later become his wife. “It is my guardian angel in this world.” Many years later, when others thought that his reluctance to embrace quantum mechanics showed that he had lost his edge, he lamented, “To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.”7
His success came from questioning conventional wisdom, challenging authority, and marveling at mysteries that struck others as mundane. This led him to embrace a morality and politics based on respect for free minds, free spirits, and free individuals. Tyranny repulsed him, and he saw tolerance not simply as a sweet virtue but as a necessary condition for a creative society. “It is important to foster individuality,” he said, “for only the individual can produce the new ideas.”8
This outlook made Einstein a rebel with a reverence for the harmony of nature, one who had just the right blend of imagination and wisdom to transform our understanding of the universe. These traits are just as vital for this new century of globalization, in which our success will depend on our creativity, as they were for the beginning of the twentieth century, when Einstein helped usher in the modern age.
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A good read if you want to know the life of one of the most prolific men in science. Einstein was a genius but more than that it was his non conformity to the status quo and inquisitive nature which allowed him to transcend beyond the scientific limits of his time. This book is a great read to know the history of theoretical physics in Europe during the late 1800s to 1940s, a period of time when so much of modern physics was discovered and Einstein had a hand in almost everything! Contrary to popular belief that he flunked his school or college, Einstein had one of the best educations one could have during that time. He truly was a genius, the ability to extrapolate concepts which have never before been formalized requires grit and great resolve of mind. Einstein had some of the most amazing friends who have helped him time and again to reach such a celebrity level although it's evident from the book that he struggled a lot during his younger days.
This biography is well written albeit bereft of any mathematics or physics to explain complex concepts of general relativity, instead it's more of a historical account of the early days of theoretical physics and a deep look into the human life Einstein had.
Edit: the cover absolutely sucks. Its got Geoffrey rush's picture as Einstein.
Terrific. Mesmerizing. Beautiful. Thought provoking. Entertaining. Got all the attributes for an ideal read. You will fell in love with physics after a few pages in to it. More than anything else, you will fell in love Eintien for all his imagination, rebels, non-conformist nature, strong principles and the impact he left on physics. Quite a read!! loved it. Thanks Issacson. you nailed the biography.
Its a great feeling reading this book. Knowing the details of one of the best scientist ever lived on the planet made me feel good . throughout the book I was wondering on how Isaacson has pulled this off with so much ease by providing so many details and scrutinizing Einstein in all the angles. Take a bow Isaacson for your research on the reaserch freek Einstein and giving the world the best biography of the miracle man.
This kind of book comes rarely once. I remember reading somewhere that biographies make you new friends. And this is the book which will make you friends with Einstein. It feels personal and upclose to him. Wasn't into biographies but from now on have to read lot of biographies.. Go for it.
I was inspired by the TV drama on National Geographics. The book provide more details about the life of Einstein as well as on his theories. It is easy to read and inspiring.
It was very insightful about Einstein, his theories and how his mind worked. It’s not a quick read, take time to understand and wonder about his works in science which is mentioned in this book in great detail.
Any curious layman would find this book utterly engrossing and would relish exploring the life of Einstein and his love for science and humanity with his sagacious endeavour to remain a non-conformist and while away from accepted dogmas in science and society.
5.0 out of 5 starsA well-sourced and authoritative biography of Einstein
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 July 2013
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This proved to be an interesting and very complete biography of Einstein, with sources listed for all key facts. Perhaps it was a trifle too long in parts, resulting in me skimming some sections, but it provides a remarkable insight into the life and the times of this great physicist. Whilst I had prior knowledge of Einstein's scientific work, I had not appreciated other aspects of his life, including his troubled relationships with his first wife and his children from that marriage, nor had I understood the extent of the anti-semitism to which he had been subjected, nor his celebrity status, whereby the press hung on to his every word. As well as detailing Einstein's life, Walter Isaacson also does a sound job of explaining, in simplified terms, the background to much of Einstein's scientific endeavours, including quantum physics, relativity, and his unsuccessful search for a unified field theory to unite gravitation with electromagnetism. I learned a lot about Einstein from this book and Isaacson brought him alive in terms of his personality.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 December 2019
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Other books by this author especially the Job's biography are perhaps more readable. It can be sometimes lengthy as Isaacson describes in great details events taking place in Einstein's life, documented it appears, to all the letters everyone at that time seemed to write to each other and keep forever. However this does give one a good idea how winning a Nobel prize can typically happen much later after the fact and how a noble prize winner can be immediately projected into fame at that time, especially in this case by the American population. We see this still today where an Nobel winner, an expert in a relatively small field, is asked to pronounce on so many world issues and to patronize so many causes. We still see this today. Let me add I bought a used, hardcover edition from Betterworldbooks via Amazon. It did arrived later than expected, in excellent condition. As I had already been refunded, they magnanimously agreed to make me a present of it! So I am more than happy to recommend them.
5.0 out of 5 starsWonderful insight into the mind of a genius
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 February 2012
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I cannot add much to what has been said by others here. The author has incredible knowledge of Einstein's life and a good grasp of the physics that made Einstein famous. It is bewildering that anyone can write such a comprehensive work. I see the author is/was also the CEO of CNN. Quite an extraordinary panoply of talent. The book is fascinating and at no point does it leave you cold. Complex principles of theoretical physics are explained clearly without resorting to the underlying mathematical equations. Einstein was as often wrong as he was correct but when he was correct he revolutionized how we see the Universe. JP.
5.0 out of 5 starsBest biography of Einstein I've read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 August 2015
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Easy to read but well-researched life of the great scientist, which made me whistle in astonishment at just how marvellous Einstein's intuition was for the way the physical world works. Few human beings have been blessed with such incredible creativity, and this book brings that out in some detail and in ways that other biographies of Einstein I've read haven't. The great man's personal life was sometimes in rather a mess, but he comes across as a kindly - if detached - and sympathetic man. It's rather sad that the development of quantum uncertainty left him behind.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 February 2014
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I thoroughly enjoyed Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs which encouraged me to read his biography of Einstein. Again, I found it a very enjoyable read. As one might expect, there is a lot about particle physics and despite Isaacson generally avoiding mathematical explanations, I must confess I didn't follow all of it, but even the during parts I didn't fully understand, my interest didn't waver because it gave one a sense of the enormous intellectual challenges that Einstein was grappling with. There is also plenty about his personal life that was also interesting.
I had no idea of what the theory of relativity was or Einstein's life. His life story is fascinating and the simplicity of his ideas that proved in the face of perceived wisdom to be correct. How fate took him in directions that allowed him to engage his brain that only a free thinking person could. I would love to have met him! I am neither mathematical or scientific but somehow it makes sense now.
5.0 out of 5 starsAmazing and interesting biography of Einstein.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 December 2019
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This audiibook on the life of Albert Einstein is unique in the sense that it depicts every little detail of the life and works of this great scientist. I recommend it to anyone who likes to know about the life of Einstein. I listen while I am driving as it's an audi CD. Sound quality is excellent.
I found it an incredible account of his life having watched the TV series. He was involved with far more than his original theory of relativity personally and professionally! A very large account of a larger than life achiever.
Einstein's ideas are hard to get to grips with because we try to take them in all at once. He took a lifetime to think them through, and this is the story of his life and how his thought developed. Worth reading through if only to get to the fascinating story of what happened to his brain after he died. And by persevering you end up with a deeper understanding of the unfathomable. Or at least you think you do.
I have never written a review before but this book deserves one. Thoroughly enjoyed this book and I am not ashamed to admit I actually got a bit sad when Einstein died (spoiler alert?). He truly was magnificent. I liked Walter Isaacson so much I have also bought his Benjamin Franklin biography.
![Einstein: His Life and Universe by [Walter Isaacson]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51CDmU9WXhL._SY346_.jpg)
