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Einstein: His Life and Universe | 
 enlarge | Author: Walter Isaacson
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
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Rating:  213 reviews
Sales Rank: 1668
Media: Paperback
Pages: 704
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 2
ISBN: 0743264746
Dewey Decimal Number: 530.092
EAN: 9780743264747
Publication Date: May 13, 2008
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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 208 more reviews...
 You Don't Have to be a Student of Physics to Enjoy this Book April 16, 2007
D. Buxman (Pueblo, CO United States)
123 out of 135 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.
The Person of the XX Century June 17, 2007
Benjamin (Chicago, IL USA)
57 out of 62 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
Awesome book about a larger than life scientist... May 29, 2007
Cynthia K. Robertson (beverly, new jersey USA)
23 out of 23 found this review helpful
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson is an awesome book about a man who was larger than life. Did I understand all of it? Nope. But that didn't keep me from enjoying it immensely.
Walter Isaacson is known for his well-researched and well-written biographies of great men, and he was aided by the discovery of many of Einstein's previously unknown private letters in 1986. After going through the basics, the author alternates between Einstein's personal life, his scientific work and his political beliefs.
As a physicist, Einstein possessed a brilliant mind. In 1905, he published four new theories that would change science forever. An uninspired student in college, he was unable to get a teaching job upon graduation. Instead, he ended up working for the Swiss Patent Office. This actually proved beneficial as it allowed him extra time to work on his theories. A humble man, Einstein believed that "knowledge is limited" and that curiosity and imagination were responsible for his discoveries. Isaacson tries to explain these in an easy-to-understand manner, but I still found my eyes glazing over in spots. By the end of his career, Einstein was no longer the innovative rebel but instead, the more conservative sage of Princeton.
As for Einstein's personal life, the newly discovered letters allow Isaacson to write in more detail about the famous scientist than any other biographer. This new treasure trove sheds new light on his first marriage to Meliva Maric. Einstein had complicated relationships with both wives and his two sons, and he didn't always treat them admirably. Yet, he was a very social man and had dozens of life-long relationships with other scientists and mathematicians. Einstein was described as "kind, good-natured, gentle and unpretentious." This quiet and unassuming man became our first celebrity scientist and hoards of fans flocked to see him. In these respects, Einstein was much like Ben Franklin--another one of Isaacson's subjects.
Einstein had strong political beliefs. He was both a socialist and a strong pacifist. But Hitler and Nazi anti-Semitism caused him to not only abandon his native Germany but also, to throw his weight behind the war effort. Einstein also decried racism. When Marian Anderson came to Princeton in 1937 to perform, the Nassau Inn refused her a room. Einstein opened his Princeton home to her.
Although Isaacson's biography is exhaustive, he leaves just a few questions unanswered. First, whatever happened to his house in Caputh, Germany after the war? I discovered on the internet that it has a fascinating history that I'm sure Isaacson's readers would enjoy. Also, I wonder how the advent of the computer might have changed Einstein's accomplishments. But these are only small issues in an almost perfect book.
I was never very interested in Albert Einstein, but Isaacson has piqued my interest. He succeeds in bringing to life this "locksmith" who "knows that math is the language nature uses to describe her wonders."
This is an informative and entertaining biography April 19, 2007
Robert G Yokoyama (Mililani, Hawaii)
31 out of 36 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed reading this biography of Albert Einstein, because I learned a little bit about physics. I learned the formula for calculating accleration. The formula for calculating velocity is times mass. I also learned that people in different states of motion measure events and objects differently. Issacson also discusses Einstein's theory about light, for which he won the Nobel prize for science in 1922. Walter Issacson makes physics sounds very interesting, and I believe he truly teaches the reader some basic principles of physics in this book.
This biography is indeed educational, but it is also entertaining. Issacson portrays Albert Einstein as a compassionate man. Einstein used his talent for playing the violin. He performed in concerts to raise money to send to Jewish people living in Germany. Einstein was a world traveller. He visited Japan to talk about his scientific theory of relativity, and he also visited Jerusalem, and he helped establish a Hebrew University there. He even had the opportunity to become the leader of Israel in his later years.
He was a genius as a scientist, but he was often emotionally distant towards his two sons and his wife. One of the more interesting opinions in this book is Einstein's view on science. He felt that the goal of scientists was to make the lives of ordinary citizens better by helping them understand the world around them. Einstein was a man who was against war and violence. Yet, his famous equation about energy and mass spurred the development of the atom bomb during World War II that was dropped on Hiroshima. This is a very long book. It can be hard to read for some because of the heavy scientific material in it. I think anyone can enjoy this book, whether they have a knowledge of physics or not.
The human face of Einstein April 28, 2007
Jon Hunt (Old Greenwich, Ct. USA)
31 out of 32 found this review helpful
Walter Isaacson's sweeping new book about one of the great minds in life is a tribute to Albert Einstein through his life and his work. For those of us who know the renowned physicist through equations and reputation, Isaacson fills in the rest. Einstein's creativity and his abiltity to think far past others added so much dimension to the arena of science while his personal life was just as rich with detail. In "Einstein", the author reveals a dashing history.
As Isaacson says, Einstein wondered early on what it would be like to ride alongside a light beam. This kind of thinking outside the box led to a lifetime of successes and a few failures, as well. The good and the bad are covered here. What is so striking about this book is that the reader seems to grow with the subject. One cheers Einstein on in his youth as he throws convention out the window, bucks hierarchy and generally goes his own way. Later in life, as Einstein becomes more reasoned (but nonetheless no less radical) we understand the transformation. This is the key to the enjoyment of reading "Einstein"...the humanness of his person shines.
There are a couple of chapters which took me by surprise and are terrific additions to the book. One is titled "Einstein's God", a look at how science and religion may or may not be reconciled in Einstein's eyes, and a chapter on the "Red Scare". That Einstein should have lived through the McCarthy era and had the wits to comment on it is fortuitous, indeed.
"Einstein" may just be the best read of the year. Isaacson's narrative style flows and while there are a lot of technical points about physics necessary to the the story, it never for a minute lets down. I highly recommend "Einstein" and give tribute to Walter Isaacson, whose research and strength as an author gives us such a compelling look at Albert Einstein.
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