Einstein by Walter Isaacson
This is the first comprehensive biography of Albert Einstein since all of his papers have been public, written by the renowned bestseller Benjamin Franklin.
How did his brain function? What made him so brilliant? The biography of Isaacson demonstrates how his rebellious spirit gave rise to the imagination that made his science unique. His interesting tale reflects the triumphs and upheavals of the modern era and is a monument to the relationship between creativity and freedom.
Einstein by Walter Isaacson
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- life and thought of Albert Einstein
This book explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk—a struggling father in a challenging marriage who couldn’t get a teaching job or a doctorate—became the mindreader of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe—based on recently released papers and personal letters. His achievement came from challenging received wisdom and marvelling at marvels that other people would have considered banal. He eventually adopted a morality and politics based on respect for free spirits, free minds, and free people as a result of this. These qualities are just as crucial for the beginning of the previous century, which Einstein contributed to ushering in, as they were for the present century of globalization, in which our success will depend on our innovation.
The stories of Einstein, which are depictions of a scientist as a young man, are particularly pertinent because they demonstrate how a young man’s environment shapes him and how his love of women and his free-spirited, bohemian friendships with other young men help him navigate the world. He learns quickly, as do many scientists and artists, to focus their life on comprehending some aspect of nature. He may be the greatest scientist of all time because he redefined our understanding of the very, very large—the entire universe held together by gravity—and the very, very small—the nature of the atom and light interacting with it.
This biography of Einstein turned out to be fascinating and extremely thorough, with references provided for all significant information. The book offers a unique look into the life and times of this brilliant physicist, albeit I may have skimmed certain sections because they were a little long in spots. While I was already familiar with Einstein’s scientific contributions, I was unaware of other facets of his life, such as the strained relationships he had with his first wife and the children they had together, the severity of the anti-Semitism he had experienced, and his celebrity status, which caused the media to closely follow his every utterance.
Along with describing Einstein’s biography, Walter Isaacson does a good job of laying out the context for many of his scientific endeavours, such as quantum physics, relativity, and his fruitless attempt to combine gravitation with electromagnetism into a single unified field theory. This book taught me a lot about Einstein, and Isaacson vividly captured his character.
