Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007)

A fascinating, multi-faceted, human being. Mr. Isaacson brings Einstein to life with a sense of humor and a sense of joy. ( )

Recomendado, mientras mas avanzas mejor es...
Una maravillosa historia de una vida tan intensa e interesante, enmarcada en una de las tantas épocas del mundo donde la humanidad una vez mas olvida su pasado y repite los mismos errores, para cerrar el ciclo de una época mas y empezar un ciclo (época) nuevo, nos tocara vivir nuestro propio ciclo...
( )

A great biography and a really unusual person. Isaacson makes the man and the science clear. The period when Einstein was working on special and general relativity is by far the most interesting and dramatic, but he's an interesting man throughout. Einstein managed to be both rigorously principled and a gentle and sweet person. ( )

,

Einstein was that rare beast, a celebrity scientist. Isaacson captured the personality - the loner who cared about humanity. Einstein was what we instinctively think of when we hear the phrase absent-minded professor. This book is a social history, who did what when. Lots of detail and insights into actions. We learn of Einstein's early rejection of conformity and obedience to authority. He sees the downsides of German society and moves to the more hospitable Switzerland taking Swiss citizenship and avoiding German conscription. He also sees the strength of German science but that attracts him only for a while. While we see him as the eminent mathematics professor we learn his shortcomings both as a mathematician and professor were things that limited him throughout life. While we think of him in conjunction with Princeton University, he actually came to the Institute of Advanced Studies because it required no teaching. Yes he championed Israel but grew less enamored when it became clear Jews and Arabs were not able to resolve differences. He was a socialist, a pacifist, war resister and passionate one-worlder. He understood the need to defeat Hitler and nationalism enough to overcome his passions and advise Roosevelt to build the atom bomb. He had no interest in working on the project. For him knowing the truth was more important than demonstrating it. He was a theoretical physicist and disdained experiments which he felt just proved him correct which he already knew. For some this was arrogance and lead to the end of relationships. Fortunately his unassuming nature was what most people saw. Another side of Einstein which I learned from reading this book was his numerous relationships with women. His violin and smile was infectious. He was clearly given lots of slack.

More important was learning the later half of Einstein's life was in a sense totally unproductive. His major achievements came early in his career. His paper on relativity was published in 1905. The last half of his life was spent poking holes at quantum physics. He was constantly saying "God does not play dice." This was directly aimed at quantum physics which depended on probabilities. He desperately wanted to find a general theory which would unify both gravity and the world of electrons. He felt he was uniquely positioned to work on this as he was already famous and had no need to publish. Younger men had their careers to think about and could not waste time on unpublishable dead ends. So he dreamed on, never finding that unifying equation.

There was one aspect of this book which I found wanting. While we learned much about Einstein's life and were taken through several of the thought experiments he investigated one aspect of his life is virtually unexplored in this book. We learn that Einstein was constantly working on equations with pencil and paper, the tools of his trade. But we never explore those equations. I would have loved to see what each of the terms were contributing but that was not in this book. I didn't read through all the footnotes. Perhaps someone has already written that book. If not looks like there's an opportunity. ( )