Einstein: The Life of a Genius

p Albert Einstein is synonymous with genius. From his remarkable theory of relativity and the famous equation E=mcsmallsup2/sup/small to his concept of a unified field theory, no one has contributed as much to science in the last century. /p p As well as showing how Einstein developed his theories, iEinstein/i reveals the man behind the science, from his early years and experiments in Germany and his struggle to find work at the Swiss patent office to his marriages and children, his role in the development of the atomic bomb, and his work for civil rights groups in the United States. /p p Drawing on new research and personal documents belonging to Einstein only recently made available, this book also includes items of rare facsimile memorabilia, to show you more than this scientist's groundbreaking theories. /p

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 iEinstein: His Life and Universe/i, Walter Isaacson (author of the bestselling biographies iBenjamin Franklin/i and iKissinger/i) 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. i--Anne Bartholomew/iBRBR bRead "The Light-Beam Rider," the first chapter of Walter Isaacson's iEinstein: His Life and Universe/i./b HR class=bucketDivider noShade SIZE=1 B class=h1Five Questions for Walter Isaacson/B BRBRIMG hspace=4 src="http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/books/content/Isaacson_Walter_250.jpg" align=right vspace=4 border=0 BAmazon.com:/B What kind of scientific education did you have to give yourself to be able to understand and explain Einstein's ideas?BRBR BIsaacson:/B 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.BRBR BAmazon.com:/B 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? BRBR BIsaacson:/B 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 IEinstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps/I, 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.BRBR BAmazon.com:/B 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?BRBR BIsaacson:/B 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. BRBR BAmazon.com:/B Of the many legends that have accumulated around Einstein, what did you find to be least true? Most true? BRBR BIsaacson:/B 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.BRBR BAmazon.com:/B At iTime/i 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? BRBR BIsaacson:/B 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 iTime/i. 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. BRBR HR class=bucketDivider noShade SIZE=1 ="/" P clear=allB class=h1More to Explore/B TABLE cellPadding=4 width="100%" TBODY TR align=middle TD width="33%" PIMG src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/074325807X.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg" border=0BRIBenjamin Franklin: An American Life/I /P/TD TD width="33%"IMG src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0743286979.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg" border=0BRIKissinger: A Biography /I/TD TD width="33%"IMG src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0684837714.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg" border=0BRIThe Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made /I/TD /TR/TBODY/TABLE HR class=bucketDivider noShade SIZE=1