Einstein: His Life and Universe |  | Author: Walter Isaacson
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
List Price: $14.00
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Seller: vana11
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 7514
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Pages: 704
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6.1 x 1.7
Dewey Decimal Number: 530.092
ASIN: B001JJBOSI
Publication Date: May 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
 this book deserved the accolades it received November 9, 2009
Jason A. Gagnon (Cobleskill, NY USA)
This bio got loads of good press, and deservedly so.
I learned things about the man that I'd never known- his research into recently released papers was very illuminating- particularly the story about the missing daughter, that Einstein and his first wife probably put up for adoption when they had the poor dear out of wedlock. The child has disappeared from history.
My only critique is that Isaacson should have re-edited the initial chapters more thoroughly- as with his bio of Franklin, (which, I admit, I didn't finish) you sometimes learn more about Isaacson's brilliant liberalism than you do anything about his subject- but the last 90% of the book was spot on.
Einstein, Einstein, Einstein...
I wonder about people that seem to love the world, but have issues loving individuals.
 Einstein His Life and Universe October 22, 2009
D. Crowell (Aurora, CO)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Winner of Time Magazines person of the 20th Century, Albert Einstein was a legend in his own time and his scientific ideas continue to live on today. Walter Isaacson's recent biography, Einstein His Life and Universe, is an in depth look at this icon, his life, ideas and tribulations. Born in Germany, this boy genius was a rebel and not a very good student when he was young. Unhappy with authority and the Prussian mind set of strict discipline, he found a better life for free thinkers in neighboring Switzerland. A graduate of The Zurich Polytechnic and later an employee at the the Bern Patent Office, he had a hard time finding work. His desire to work at more respectable universities were often met with letters of rejection. With a chaotic marriage, coupled with child custody problems and a later divorce, it is a miracle that this man came up with such breakthroughs in theoretical physics. But he did and it changed the lives of humanity to this day.
Isaacson, does a good job in his book of not only covering Einstein's life but describes his theories of Special and General Relativity; with later introductions to Quantum Theory, that a "smart" layman can understand. I had to re-read the juicy scientific parts a few times to digest it, but it was worth the effort. Later in his life, Einstein wrestled with a unified field theory that would unite gravity and electromagnetism with the crazy unpredictable micro world of Quantum Mechanics. He did not have much success but did make some interesting observations and had many theories and opinions on this new and strange small atomic world. Being world famous and on the speakers circuit, Einstein was thrown into the political mix of the 1920's and 1930's and eventually made decisions that would later affect his life. An early believer in a Jewish state, he helped the Zionist movement and the creation of a Hebrew university in Israel. A staunch opponent to militant nationalism politics, he unknowingly endorsed anti war Communist front group causes and later was seen as a risk to national security during World War Two. But, there was no doubt that he was a proud American. Einstein would joke that he was not a Pacifist, but a militant pacifist. His utopia vision for the world was a one world benevolent government that ensured individual freedoms and encouraged free thought. As for the development of the A-Bomb, Einstein was not a active participant in its construction, but his famous equation of, e=mc2, was the building block that helped make it.
This book is an enjoyable read because it covers all parts of Einstein's life to include the lighter side of this deep thinker. His love of life, his love of people and his quick witted humor and absentmindedness is a trait that many people equate with this great man. One example is when he would take his hat off during a rainstorm saying that he knew that his hair could withstand the rain but he was unsure of how his hat would hold up. He would listen to his students ideas and theories and even help small children in his neighborhood with their math homework. I have read other books on Albert Einstein, but I would recommend that this one be put on the list of favorites. Some are not as complete, while others deal mainly with his science- but this one is a pleasant mixture of both. I enjoyed this book and found it informative, educational and interesting on the life of this human legend. This is a great biography of a most interesting man, with a good dose of science, and this makes this book the best of both worlds.
Robert Glasker
Book club selection September 12, 2009
M. Rushing (Plano, TX USA)
This book was the September club selection. It gave a very interesting description of one of the most important Physicists in modern history. It provided a look at the man behind the science.
 What is out there and what is in our heads May 28, 2009
Helmut Wallenfels (La Center, WA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I bought this book because I thought it might help me better understand the special and general theories of relativity by allowing me, as it were, to follow in Einstein's footsteps while he developed them. It did that; my understanding of them, while still shaky, is much better than it was. But the really exciting aspect of this story turned out to be the incredible difficulty which even geniuses ( to say nothing of the rest of us ) have in struggling and overcoming our inherited ways of thinking. Max Planck refused to accept the full implications of his epochal equation E=h x f for decades, and then, very ironically, Einstein, who saw Planck's problem so clearly, had the same problem when he got older. Although his Nobel-Prize winning 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect unquestionably makes him one of the founding fathers of quantum physics, he simply could not shake off his visceral conviction that "real" physics makes deterministic rather than statistical or probabilistic predictions. How ironic that the man who superseded Newton's law of universal gravitation was a deterministic arch-Newtonian at heart ! And what a lesson in humility and skepticism toward the contents of our brains to the rest of us !
well worth buying March 26, 2009
bill e (chappaqua, ny)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
excellent biography. cites little known facts; gives a basic analysis of his work; good inclusion of history, and its influence on his lifestyle decisions.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
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