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| Einstein: His Life and Universe | 
 enlarge | Author: Walter Isaacson
Publisher: audible.com
Category: Book
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Amazon.com Review
As a scientist, Albert Einstein is undoubtedly the most epic among 20th-century thinkers. Albert Einstein as a man, however, has been a much harder portrait to paint, and what we know of him as a husband, father, and friend is fragmentary at best. With Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson (author of the bestselling biographies Benjamin Franklin and Kissinger) brings Einstein's experience of life, love, and intellectual discovery into brilliant focus. The book is the first biography to tackle Einstein's enormous volume of personal correspondence that heretofore had been sealed from the public, and it's hard to imagine another book that could do such a richly textured and complicated life as Einstein's the same thoughtful justice. Isaacson is a master of the form and this latest opus is at once arresting and wonderfully revelatory. --Anne Bartholomew
Read "The Light-Beam Rider," the first chapter of Walter Isaacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe.
Five Questions for Walter Isaacson
 Amazon.com: What kind of scientific education did you have to give yourself to be able to understand and explain Einstein's ideas?
Isaacson: I've always loved science, and I had a group of great physicists--such as Brian Greene, Lawrence Krauss, and Murray Gell-Mann--who tutored me, helped me learn the physics, and checked various versions of my book. I also learned the tensor calculus underlying general relativity, but tried to avoid spending too much time on it in the book. I wanted to capture the imaginative beauty of Einstein's scientific leaps, but I hope folks who want to delve more deeply into the science will read Einstein books by such scientists as Abraham Pais, Jeremy Bernstein, Brian Greene, and others.
Amazon.com: That Einstein was a clerk in the Swiss Patent Office when he revolutionized our understanding of the physical world has often been treated as ironic or even absurd. But you argue that in many ways his time there fostered his discoveries. Could you explain?
Isaacson: I think he was lucky to be at the patent office rather than serving as an acolyte in the academy trying to please senior professors and teach the conventional wisdom. As a patent examiner, he got to visualize the physical realities underlying scientific concepts. He had a boss who told him to question every premise and assumption. And as Peter Galison shows in Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps, many of the patent applications involved synchronizing clocks using signals that traveled at the speed of light. So with his office-mate Michele Besso as a sounding board, he was primed to make the leap to special relativity.
Amazon.com: That time in the patent office makes him sound far more like a practical scientist and tinkerer than the usual image of the wild-haired professor, and more like your previous biographical subject, the multitalented but eminently earthly Benjamin Franklin. Did you see connections between them?
Isaacson: I like writing about creativity, and that's what Franklin and Einstein shared. They also had great curiosity and imagination. But Franklin was a more practical man who was not very theoretical, and Einstein was the opposite in that regard.
Amazon.com: Of the many legends that have accumulated around Einstein, what did you find to be least true? Most true?
Isaacson: The least true legend is that he failed math as a schoolboy. He was actually great in math, because he could visualize equations. He knew they were nature's brushstrokes for painting her wonders. For example, he could look at Maxwell's equations and marvel at what it would be like to ride alongside a light wave, and he could look at Max Planck's equations about radiation and realize that Planck's constant meant that light was a particle as well as a wave. The most true legend is how rebellious and defiant of authority he was. You see it in his politics, his personal life, and his science.
Amazon.com: At Time and CNN and the Aspen Institute, you've worked with many of the leading thinkers and leaders of the day. Now that you've had the chance to get to know Einstein so well, did he remind you of anyone from our day who shares at least some of his remarkable qualities?
Isaacson: There are many creative scientists, most notably Stephen Hawking, who wrote the essay on Einstein as "Person of the Century" when I was editor of Time. In the world of technology, Steve Jobs has the same creative imagination and ability to think differently that distinguished Einstein, and Bill Gates has the same intellectual intensity. I wish I knew politicians who had the creativity and human instincts of Einstein, or for that matter the wise feel for our common values of Benjamin Franklin.
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Product Description
By the author of the acclaimed bestseller Benjamin Franklin, this is the first full biography of Albert Einstein since all of his papers have become available.How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Isaacson's biography shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the rebellious nature of his personality. His fascinating story is a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom. Based on newly released personal letters of Einstein, this book explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk -- a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn't get a teaching job or a doctorate -- became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe. His success came from questioning conventional wisdom 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. 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 last century, when Einstein helped usher in the modern age.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 212 more reviews...
 A complex man gets his due in fascinating biography April 12, 2007
231 out of 245 found this review helpful
Walter Isaacson's biography of Einstein creates a fuller better rounded image of one of the finest minds of the 20th Century than many biographies of Einstein. Although it's not without its flaws, Issacson's book covers much of Einstein's life pointing out both his successes and flaws as both a person and physicist.
We learn that as a child Einstein suffered from what could be echolalia (which is where you mutter a phrase to yourself multiple times before saying it to others). Issacson notes both Einstein's debt to Hume, Planck and philosphers such as Kant in helping develop both his world view and his breakthroughs in science. To his credit Isaacson also points out that the man that came to embody the modern view of physics and became a hero had feet of clay; Einstein gave up his daughter for adoption without ever seeing her and spent much of his time away from Mileva (who would eventually become his first wife) while she was pregnant for a variety of reasons some understandable some not. The young Einstein was brash,egotistic and obnoxious (or you could call him overly confident) often pointing out flaws in papers by the very professors he was seeking jobs from. He also charts Einstein's difficult path to his professorship including his stint working in the Swiss patent office.
Isaacson does cover Einstein's support for the development of the atomic bomb (although this is a relatively small section of the biography) and mentions that Einstein later regreted the bombing that occurred in Japan during World War II. When Einstein came up with this famous equation, he never imagined it would be used for mass destruction. He was conflicted over his role in the development of the atomic bomb feeling both responsibility and guilty over his role. This guilt shaped his role in leading the charge for a world government that would prevent individual nations from using the atomic bomb. He later stated that if he had known Germany wasn't going to be able to develop the atomic bomb, he "never would have lifted a finger" to prompt the United States to develop this weapon of mass destruction. He never forgave the German people for their role in trying to exterminate Jews and others prohibiting sale of his books in post-war Germany and stated that he felt the country should continue to be punished for what occurred. Isaacson addresses some of the contradictions of the man of peace who contributed and supported war showing that while Einstein had his absolute convicitions they could sometimes shift depending on the circumstances. Einstein never pretended to be perfect and Isaacson does a good job of portraying the flawed but brilliant human being at the core of all that brain power. The biggest surprise for me was discovering that he unwittingly had an affair with a Soviet spy.
Most importantly the author manages to give understandable explanations of Einstein's theories and how he came up with many of them. One can't understand Einstein's world without understanding his world view or the way that his papers/theories altered the world we live in today. I'd recommend this book for the compelling human portrait that Isaacson creates of one of the leading figures of science in the 20th Century. Also recommended--
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
 You Don't Have to be a Student of Physics to Enjoy this Book April 16, 2007
124 out of 129 found this review helpful
In my experience, biographies of great scientists often leave the reader in a fog of technical complexity. While this book is not "Physics in One Simple Lesson," Walter Isaacson did a wonderful job of telling the story of the man and making the scientific aspects sufficiently understandable to be useful in grasping the magnitude of Einstein's intellect. This book is meticulously researched and sourced, yet written in a witty and entertaining way that makes reading it a pleasure. The central lesson that I was left with was the importance of independent thinking in any context. Einstein made it clear that conventional wisdom is often neither practical, nor wise. I was struck by his resiliance in his early years and his good humor in really tough times. I also appreciated the fact that the author was willing to examine all aspects of Eintein's personality, both favorable and unfavorable.
Rock-star scientist! May 5, 2007
72 out of 79 found this review helpful
As a young man Einstein rebelled against established authority, defying his parents, teachers, and militaristic German society, going so far as to renounce his citizenship. When he enrolled in Zurich Polytechnic his disdain for his teachers was readily apparent. Because he skipped so many classes in favor of studying on his own, he barely passed his exams. This came back to haunt him when these same professors spurned his applications for an assistantship, and that's how he wound up working at the patent office.
Isaacson stresses the idea that it was Einstein's rebelliousness and contempt for authority that led to his great discoveries. Few scientists had the chutzpah to question Newton's concept of space and time. Because Einstein did he was able to formulate his theories of special relativity and general relativity.
It was only when Einstein became an authority figure himself that he ran into problems. He insisted that God "would not play dice by allowing things to happen by chance." Thus, he spent the rest of his life trying to find a theory that would combine his general relativity and electromagnetism. When weak and strong nuclear forces were discovered, he ignored them, just as he did quantum mechanics, a theory that he helped formulate.
According to some of the reviews I've read, Isaacson aims at the layman in his analysis of Einstein's theories. Despite this admirable goal, his stand-alone discussions of special and general relativity as well as The Uncertainty Principle and such terms as "synchronicity" and the "equivalence principle" were a bit tedious; however, I did finally get the idea behind E equals MC squared. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared is illustrated by using the mass of a raisin. Mass times 186,000 miles a second doubled could power the city of New York for an entire day. I was also not aware that Hubble discovered the first galaxy, outside of the Milky Way, as recently as 1924. Isaacson also addresses the idea that Mileva Maric, Einstein's first wife, deserves some credit for his discoveries. Isaacson tries to show that she was no more than a sounding board. Einstein was so obsessed by science that he discussed it in his love letters.
The story begins to pick up when Einstein moves to Princeton. That's where we begin to see the absent-minded professor begin to emerge. He was also the first "rock-star" scientist as journalists and ordinary citizens clamored to get near him. Isaacson shows that it was Einstein's personality that led to his renown. He had a certain flair for publicity and he had a sly sense of humor. One illustration would be a time when he was lecturing in London, and it was rumored that the Nazis had put out a contract on him. He was given two female body guards sporting hunting shotguns. Einstein said, "The beauty of my bodyguards would disarm a conspirator sooner than their shotguns."
Einstein spent over twenty years at the Institute for Advance Studies in Princeton, where he became a legend not only for his science but also for his eccentricities. Once, on one of his ramblings, he forgot where he lived and had to call the Institute for directions. He lived there on Mercer Street with several women, his second wife Elsa, his aide Helen Dukas, and later his stepdaughter Margot and his sister Maja. As the years went by both Elsa and Maja adapted Einstein's fly-away hairdo. An interesting anecdote pertains to Maja. She was a vegetarian but she loved hotdogs. When she began to decline in the late forties, Einstein convinced her they were vegetables.
The story of Einstein's letter to President Roosevelt concerning the development of the Atom Bomb is well known, but he was a pacifist well before the war and worked passionately for world peace and a world government. He also put his money where his mouth was when it came to discrimination. When Marian Anderson, the famous contralto, came to Princeton for a concert she was denied a room at the Nassau Inn. Einstein invited her to stay at his house on Mercer Street.
Einstein was also one of the early critic of McCarthyism, and the FBI had a heavy file on him as he unwittingly lent his name to several Communist front organizations. He worried that America was losing its democratic spirit. Some even accused him of being an atheist. Einstein responded, "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and doings of mankind." Einstein was an individual right up until the day he died of a burst aneurysm, an incomplete equation at his bedside.
The Person of the XX Century June 17, 2007
56 out of 61 found this review helpful
I always wanted to read a good biography of Albert Einstein. This is it. I read Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin biography and I loved it, so when this new Isaacson book was published, I knew I could not go wrong. I am not a scientist guy, so it is difficult for me to follow the explanations about the Physics in the book (specially the Quantum mechanics), but despite of that, the life of Einstein is so full of so many other interesting things, that this biography is a completely triumph. It is very difficult to write a book like that and please everyone. I could even say there are parts of the book that lack depth. For example, I don't recall Isaacson telling us about Einstein reaction to the Holocaust. Also, we have a lot of information about Einstein as a musician, playing the violin, and his love for Mozart. But we don't have a lot of information about Einstein's daily routine, like what he used to eat, if he liked to take walks, or ride a bike, how he used a handkerchief to protect his head from the sun, etc. Again, nothing is perfect and still Isaacson book is brilliant. By reading this book I've become very much interested to go beyond and learn some Physics. I've been asking to some colleagues of mine who teach Science in High School, but it seems they don't even undestand these theories themselves (which is pretty sad and also explains why our students' standards nowadays are so low). I might try the Einstein General and Specific Theory of Relativity book and see if I can understand it myself. I also went to Youtube and searched for videos about his theories and his life and I found some very interesting things. On the other hand, I also want to learn more about the Jews, which is something I've been trying to learn for so long because I am not Jewish but I have a huge respect and interest for their culture and history. Also funny, when I ask some of my Jewish friends about the creation of the State of Israel, and the conflict between Israel and Palestine, they politely avoid an answer by saying 'Oh! You need to ask someone else, because I don't know exactly how that happened ...' So again, I am going to have to learn it by myself. To finish with this review, the bottomline is this is a wonderful biography of Einstein that I strongly recommend to everyone.
P.S. If you like my review vote YES. You can read all my other reviews if you wish to. I modestly write them to help people form an opinion about movies, music and books, but if nobody reads them (if you don't vote I do not know if you did) there is no point in writing them
 Relatively disappointing May 6, 2007
55 out of 77 found this review helpful
I greatly enjoyed Isaacson's biography of Benjamin Franklin, which in my opinion is greatly superior to his biography of Einstein. The title of this book should have been "St. Albert." The book throughout has a hagiographic tone, and Isaacson spends far too much time on Einstein's politics, where his achievements were exactly: zilch. The fact that Einstein was crusading for pacifism and disarmament, as the Nazis were re-arming Germany at breakneck speed with the clear intention to undo the results of World War I, should be enough to establish that Einstein was no Einstein when it came to matters outside of his scientific work. His views of politics appear to be as fickle and superficial as most of his relationships with the women in his life after the implosion of his first marriage. Einstein's greatness rests entirely and solely on his scientific work, which Isaacson heroically pretends is made sensible by Einstein's own visual thought experiments, which are no less daunting and elusive now than they were when Einstein first published them decades ago. There is no "relativity for dummies." It remains Sphinx-like in its impenetrability and counter-intuitiveness. Einstein's struggles with the cosmological and epistemological implications of his own theories -- a topic different from and more interesting than his much more publicized queasiness with quantum mechanics and the Uncertainty Principle -- show that even he had trouble getting his arms comfortably around relativity.
The book also suffers from disjointedness, as Isaacson attempts to break the narrative of Einstein's life into thematic chapters rather than chronological ones, which results in a continual seesawing of the narrative back and forth chronologically. Nobody lives life in thematically distinct increments, and the result is an artificial and confusing construct.
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