I would not hesitate to say that Walter Isaacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007) is a stunning tour de force, even better than his recently published and much acclaimed biography of Steve Jobs.
Isaacson shows much affection and care towards his subject and has taken into consideration the new Einstein papers that became available in 2006.
He summarizes Einstein's scientific life in the first chapter as follows:
"His quest began in 1895, when as 16-year-old he imagined what it would be like to ride alongside a light beam. A decade later came his miracle year ... which laid the foundations for the two great advances of twentieth-century physics: relativity and quantum theory.
"A decade after that, in 1915, he wrested from nature his crowning glory, one of the most beautiful theories in all of science, the general theory of relativity. As with the special theory, his thinking had evolved through thought experiments....
"Gravity, he figured, was a warping of space and time, and he came up with the equations that describe how the dynamics of this curvature result from the interplay of matter, motion and energy....
"The exact midpoint of his career came a decade after that, in 1925, and it was a turning point. The quantum revolution he had helped to launch was being transformed into a new mechanics that was based on uncertainties and probabilities. He made his last great contributions to quantum mechanics that year but, simultaneously began to resist it. He would spend the next three decades ... stubbornly criticizing what he regarded as the incompleteness of quantum mechanics while attempting to subsume it into a unified field theory."
Einstein emerges in this portrait as a consistent man, with a tendency to seek refuge in science rather than indulge in the utter dreariness and aimlessness of life.
The biography clearly shows that Einstein made many mistakes on the road to general relativity. Indeed, if he had not taken so many wrong turns, the theory could have been completed a couple of years earlier. Furthermore, his race against the great mathematician David Hilbert who almost beat him to the equations of general relativity was fascinating to read. The upshot of it all is that science is a very human endeavour and this should be communicated to aspiring students.
Isaacson's book is replete with wonderful quotes showing the wit and sagacity of Einstein. I will end with one such quote: :Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality."
Isaacson shows much affection and care towards his subject and has taken into consideration the new Einstein papers that became available in 2006.
He summarizes Einstein's scientific life in the first chapter as follows:
"His quest began in 1895, when as 16-year-old he imagined what it would be like to ride alongside a light beam. A decade later came his miracle year ... which laid the foundations for the two great advances of twentieth-century physics: relativity and quantum theory.
"A decade after that, in 1915, he wrested from nature his crowning glory, one of the most beautiful theories in all of science, the general theory of relativity. As with the special theory, his thinking had evolved through thought experiments....
"Gravity, he figured, was a warping of space and time, and he came up with the equations that describe how the dynamics of this curvature result from the interplay of matter, motion and energy....
"The exact midpoint of his career came a decade after that, in 1925, and it was a turning point. The quantum revolution he had helped to launch was being transformed into a new mechanics that was based on uncertainties and probabilities. He made his last great contributions to quantum mechanics that year but, simultaneously began to resist it. He would spend the next three decades ... stubbornly criticizing what he regarded as the incompleteness of quantum mechanics while attempting to subsume it into a unified field theory."
Einstein emerges in this portrait as a consistent man, with a tendency to seek refuge in science rather than indulge in the utter dreariness and aimlessness of life.
The biography clearly shows that Einstein made many mistakes on the road to general relativity. Indeed, if he had not taken so many wrong turns, the theory could have been completed a couple of years earlier. Furthermore, his race against the great mathematician David Hilbert who almost beat him to the equations of general relativity was fascinating to read. The upshot of it all is that science is a very human endeavour and this should be communicated to aspiring students.
Isaacson's book is replete with wonderful quotes showing the wit and sagacity of Einstein. I will end with one such quote: :Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality."
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