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Book Review: Einstein: His Universe and Life June 27, 2008
Note: This is book #29 of my 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge for 2008.
A while back I had tried to read Walter Isaacson's biography on Benjamin Franklin, but just couldn't get through it because the author mired everything down in pointless details. Despite that, I decided to give his more recent book about famed theoretical physicist Albert Einstein a try. If it turned out to be boring, I'd just drop it. Turned out, I loved it.
What I loved about Isaacon's book here is the way it delicately balances three aspects: the life of Einstein from a strictly biographical angle, the examination of his scientific works like special and general relativity, and the discussion of how Einstein impacted and viewed the scientific zeitgeist of the early 20th century --particularly within the field of physics. I could see how someone setting out to write this book might want to focus on just one or two of these facets, but that would really be missing a huge opportunity. Each member of this trio of topics interacts with each other, and Isaacson finds ways to discuss two or more of them within the same passage. We get interesting little tidbits about Einstein's personal life and character, but we see how those things impacted the way he pursued his scientific work and thinking, and how that body of work turn defined (or, later, ran counter to) the entire field of physics. Seeing how all these pieces intersected and linked was fascinating.
It's all pretty well written, too. We get neat little anecdotes about Einstein like how contrary to popular belief he never failed math, or how he married his cousin, had four citizenships, or how --SPOILER ALERT-- the coroner who performed his autopsy stole his fricking brain and kept it in a jar for years while periodically giving out pieces of it to friends. I'll admit that when Isaacson would go off on a lecture about special or general relativity my eyes would glaze over while trying to follow his discussion of say four-sided triangles in non-Euclidean space or whatever, but at least some of the time it was written at a level I could follow, at least conceptually. Enough to understand the impact it had on the field, at least until Einstein's own theories were supplanted by quantum theory. If I have any criticism of the book, it's that while Isaacson does an admirable job of placing Einstein's achievements within the context of scientific discoveries at that time, what he fails to do is give us much perspective on how much --if anything-- the modern science of today owes to Einstein and his theories. What did Einstein get wrong, and what parts of his theories have been crowded out by the inevitable march of scientific progress? Dunno. Didn't say.
All in all, though, I found the book fascinating and would recommend it. I think I may go back and give the Ben Franklin book another shot.
Others doing the 52-in-52 thing this week:
- Jeremy reviews City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
- Heliologue reviews Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
- Kevin reviews The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
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Tags: Biography, Book Review, Einstein, Nonfiction, Walter Isaacson
Comments
Posted by Ger on June 27, 2008 12:21 PM:
Another spoiler I found amusing - Einstein was a horrible poet. : )
Posted by David Morris on June 27, 2008 11:03 PM:
Glad you liked this one. If you're looking for a good book on physics, check out Brian Greene's Elegant Universe. Probably the best popular writer on the subject. I like his work almost as much as James Gleick (e.g. Chaos, Genius, Isaac Newton).
Posted by David Morris on June 27, 2008 11:03 PM:
Glad you liked this one. If you're looking for a good book on physics, check out Brian Greene's Elegant Universe. Probably the best popular writer on the subject. I like his work almost as much as James Gleick (e.g. Chaos, Genius, Isaac Newton).
Posted by Nicholas Tam on July 4, 2008 6:38 PM:
Hmm, I'll have to look into this one. I'm usually not one for biography, but scientific history written for general audiences is a special interest of mine. I've just started doing the 52-in-52 myself (better mid-year than never, I say), and I'll be following your feed for sure.
Posted by Patti on July 9, 2008 9:49 AM:
A book to put on B's reading list... check. We've also got the unfinished Franklin biography littering our bookshelves over here. And as science / math / social science books are always walking into this house when he walks past our local independent bookstore, I can only imagine that this one will be really welcome among the other bathroom stockpile.