a book

Einstein: His Life and Universe

Name: Einstein: His Life and Universe
Rating: 5 (14 reviews)
Author: Walter Isaacson
ISBN: 9780743264747

Walter Isaacson · 2007 · 704 pages

By the author of the acclaimed bestsellers Benjamin Franklin and Steve Jobs, this is the definitive biography of Albert Einstein.

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.

recommended by 14 people

sourced from public statements

George Raveling
“Anybody who can write a book on Einstein and that an idiot like me can understand the physics was a miracle.”↗
Ian McEwan
“This is a biography that happens to be a treatise on creativity. I was about to say scientific creativity, but I think I mean creativity itself. It shows us the creative exuberance of a man with an extraordinary visual imagination, able to recast certain problems in surprising ways. During two particular episodes in his life he fundamentally rewrote our understanding of the physical world. During four months in 1905, his annus mirabilis, Einstein wrote four papers – on light quanta, size of molecules, Brownian motion and special relativity, and started a revolution in physics. Again, in 1915, in a matter of weeks, he formulated in his general theory of relativity what Max Born called ‘the greatest human thinking about nature’. Paul Dirac said it was the greatest discovery ever made.”↗
Herman Mashaba
“Hi @DrMaths & @drpaulinedixon thanks for the gift of this extraordinary book. It is difficult to put this amazing book down. What a pleasure to get to know Einstein’s life and universe”↗
Elon Musk
Bill Gates
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Scott Belsky
Ed Zschau
Sophie Bakalar
Scott Young
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