|
Einstein: His Life and Universe | 
 enlarge | Author: Walter Isaacson
Creator: Edward Herrmann
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $10.96
You Save: $18.99 (63%)
New (28) Used (14) from $7.39
Avg. Customer Rating:  210 reviews
Sales Rank: 115960
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Abridged
Number Of Items: 6
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 5.7 x 5.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 0743560965
Dewey Decimal Number: 530.092
EAN: 9780743560962
ASIN: 0743560965
Publication Date: April 10, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: New Audiobook in Shrink Wrap, 7 hours/ 6 CDs, Publishers Remainder Mark on UPC code, AX 63270
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
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 Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson (author of the bestselling biographies Benjamin Franklin and Kissinger) 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. --Anne Bartholomew
Read "The Light-Beam Rider," the first chapter of Walter Isaacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe.
Five Questions for Walter Isaacson
 Amazon.com: What kind of scientific education did you have to give yourself to be able to understand and explain Einstein's ideas?
Isaacson: 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.
Amazon.com: 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?
Isaacson: 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 Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps, 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.
Amazon.com: 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?
Isaacson: 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.
Amazon.com: Of the many legends that have accumulated around Einstein, what did you find to be least true? Most true?
Isaacson: 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.
Amazon.com: At Time 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?
Isaacson: 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 Time. 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.
More to Explore
Product Description
How did Einstein's 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 the newly released personal letters of Albert Einstein, Walter Isaacson 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.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 205 more reviews...
 Not Too Thick for the Thick of Mind August 29, 2008
I had a mild interest in reading about Einstein, but frankly put off reading this biography for the simple reason that it seemed thicker than my interest. But what a wonderful read it is. Isaacson does a graceful job of keeping the pace moving, and an estimable job of explaining the science (to us non-scientists) without letting it bog down the story.
And, quite simply, Einstein is also a fascinating person to read about, especially his later life as an internationalist and world icon. Highly recommended.
great book August 28, 2008
Very interesting book. Easy to understand. A fascinating overview of WWI and WWII. Well-written, informative and enjoyable to read. Hard to put down.
Einstein as archetype of the 20th century freethinker August 27, 2008
Isaacson's biography comes in at 551 pages in the hardcover edition. Given the heft, if you want to hit a demographic of more general readers, you better offer more than just Einstein's contributions to science. Isaacson nails this higher standard by offering an Einstein who is an archetypical freethinker of Western Civilization in the twentieth century, providing the reader a personal glimpse into the technological, cultural, religious, and political movements that drove that century.
After quickly moving through Einstein's youth where Isaacson destroys many of the falsehoods regarding Einstein as a child supposedly not showing much promise; Isaacson then focuses much of the first part of the book on Einstein's development of the theory of general relativity and his development of relationships within the scientific community that allows him to work on a broad array of issues within theoretical physics, but also partnering with others on engineering projects as well. This part of the book will reward those primarily interested in better understanding the creation and progression of the theories in which Einstein contributed his expertise.
I would also recommend that readers monitor the online website sciencedailydotcom as they read this book. I was amazed at how many times news stories cropped up confirming some aspect of Einstein's arguments that Einstein was forced to infer or was weakly validated with evidence given the lack of modern day equipment. It's impressive to track what is mostly the validation of his arguments but also the occasional falsification with additional empirical evidence we are now collecting.
Isaacson explains the science so any high school student who passed physics can easily understand. For those that are not at that level, I still recommend reading the book since Isaacson serves it up in fairly small doses and concentrates much of it in the earlier part of the book, plus the explanations are simple enough anyone should understand some of the more major findings. This part of the book is a bit of dry read, but will serve the reader as a useful resource for future reference. I've probably got about 50 notations I marked on especially illuminating topics.
I found the last part of the book that focused on the non-scientific aspects of Einstein's life particularly interesting and well worth the investment in time given the size of the book. I'm not sure Isaacson consciously decided to make Einstein an archetypical freethinker of the twentieth century, but I've never read about a more worthy candidate to view the development of liberalism and its resultant benefits in the twentieth century with the possible exception of FDR. In fact, I would view FDR as the leader of the movement and Einstein as a perfect example legitimizing why we should strive for liberal democracies, especially given Einstein's fellow scientists' contributions to weaponry used against Germany, where most of these fellows resided prior to the rise of Nazism.
I was very impressed with how quickly Einstein was able to develop strong positions regarding his beliefs in politics, religion, and economics, starting in his early teens where he quickly realized the logical absurdities of organized religion. What has taken me decades to develop in regards to my core principles Einstein developed within a few short years as he takes on these topics. Besides being an especially prescient thinker about these issues, Isaacson's Einstein held positions that were often solidified well before such positions were popular. His positions were consistently predictive; where Einstein willingly discarded certain core beliefs if the evidence argued heavily against it - just like any good scientist does by constantly attempting to falsify their theories with the best opposing arguments.
A great example is how Einstein perceived the threat Nazism posed to Germany well before most people realized they were a threat to anyone, which caused Einstein to emigrate from Germany in the very early 1930's while many of his Jewish scientific colleagues stayed behind at that time, though many got out a few years after. By that time Einstein was a well-known pacifist, having been very outspoken about World War I, however when Germany started invading their neighbors and the war drums started pounding for a new world war, Einstein's fellow pacifists were shockingly disappointed that Einstein wisely discarded his pacifism and supported the free world using force against Germany, showing that Einstein was no blind ideologue even for his closely held beliefs.
Isaacson's freethinking Einstein doesn't just address the positive aspects employed by freethinking and secularism, but also the social risks that occur as traditional institutions like the sanctity of marriage and family if they are separated from the fear of ostracization by one's religious community - a non-factor for the secular Einstein. Isaacson's Einstein is an incredibly selfish husband and father to the point of effectively disowning a son though no fault of the son's.
Many of the sources used to report on Einstein's life were published for the first time in this book given the release of a huge cache of correspondence between Einstein and others that was owned by the family and never offered to previous biographers. Here we see a more humanized Einstein, even though his humanity always was evident during his life and subsequent biographies. There is also an almost comedic storyline regarding the ineptness of FBI surveillance against the perfectly harmless Einstein, with a kicker regarding Einstein's relationship with a spy that I won't elaborate on here since I view it as a spoiler. The spy story was never told in previous biographies given that a subject country just released its files on Einstein just prior to Isaacson starting this book.
Some of this new documentation also provides Isaacson the opportunity to effectively discredit a favorite meme going around in social conservative circles that Einstein was sympathetic to their beliefs in the existence of a creationist / intelligent designer providential God who fine-tuned the universe. Isaacson goes for the jugular and discredits any notion this falsehood is true. A certain creationist cretin named Ray Comfort, who is working with an ex-TV child actor, actually claims he is the next Einstein and this is getting a lot of traction with social conservatives. Given that social conservatives have been actively and massively involved in historical revisionism regarding Western Civilization and their role in it, Isaacson's focus on Einstein's religious beliefs was most welcomed by me to set the record straight to attempt to rebut this effort.
Isaacson dedicates a full chapter on Einstein's god after first explaining in another full chapter Einstein's perception of the Universe. Isaacson's reportage is nuanced and perfectly constructs and deconstructs many of Einstein's communications on these matters, some of which often appeared contradictory unless one understood how Einstein used certain terms and framed some of his perceptions regarding reality. For example, Einstein occasionally claimed to be religious, but his use of the term meant the challenge to obtain knowledge beyond what science knew regarding the underlying forces of the universe, and not blind faith in religious dogma that one could never know and therefore "God must of have done it".
As a summary, if one wants to better understand the twentieth century in terms of how we progressed from zero liberal democracies in 1900 to one hundred and twenty countries coupled with incredible progress in understanding the universe and leveraging that knowledge in technology leaps that is difficult to comprehend even looking backward; than Isaacson's Einstein provides the perfect archetype from which to view that progress at a more personal level. Einstein's approach to thinking and responding to societal issues will certainly now personally serve as a model for me on how to view civilization just like I was influenced by John Locke, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, Crick & Watson, Gates, Jobs, Venter, and soon I hope, Obama. Therefore I am grateful this book was written and I invested the time to learn from it.
Einstein's Reluctance to Embrace Quantum Mechanics August 24, 2008
So much for so little! An enjoyable multifaceted look at one of the most brilliant minds of our time, Isaacson does a great job depicting the inner workings of Einstein's thought processes and his famous thought experiments. I frequently use thought experiments in my product development, so I really enjoyed that aspect. Given the numerous comprehensive reviews written, I will stick to the most important realizations or conclusions perhaps not touched upon.
Einstein, as a young bohemian was a free spirited and fearless free thinker with the knowledge that a comprehensive view was always best. Unfortunately, later in life he conformed to his own "conventional" wisdom, and as sophisticated as this wisdom may have been, this would prove to hinder his thought processes later in life. With Einstein's own thought process now "stuck" within a box he himself built, the rest of his life would prove to be an exercise in futility running countless equations, without the right tools, literally up until the day he died. The stubborn and rebellious nature of this great thinker, which led him to greatness in the first place, would now be the source of his torment, which he did seem to come to peace with at the end.
Einstein's reluctance to embrace quantum mechanics and his fear of accepting the "evil or spooky" quanta hindered any further ground breaking developments. I can't help believe that with the supremacy of Einstein's mind, had he only embraced quantum mechanics, he may have been able to understand the seemingly inconsistent continuity and realize there was no "conflict" between all of the theories; general relativity and the possibility of the unified theory included. Quanta could have bridged this in his mind, but his fear of nothing being left of his "castle of general relativity in the sky" was just too much for him to bare. At the same time, this proves Einstein more than sensed his own barrier, which turned out to literally be the cause of his failure. How sad indeed that the master of free thinking could egotistically conform to his own constraints, impede his own progress and turn into what he had fought against so passionately throughout his younger years! Einstein, Einstein, Einstein!
Well researched, entertaining and thought provoking, I give Einstein: His Life and Universe a huge thumbs up! Nichol J. Nelson
HIS ENDLESS CURIOSITY August 20, 2008
Isn't it amazing what a person can accomplish with quiet little "thought experiments" while looking out the window from a job that does not absorb all of the intellect and imagination? Isn't it also interesting that Einstein's best work was accomplished early in his career when he was struggling economically and involved in a tumultuous marriage? Perhaps it shows that a great intellect can function by detaching itself from the noise of daily life. Perhaps the subconscious mind is the source of the greatest thoughts.
Contrary our unfortunate tendency to consider Einstein only for his brain, Isaacson's book focuses on the humanity of the Professor, including his struggles, failures, odd quirks and ideas, and endless curiosity. In an age of mindless entertainment, how much we need people with minds that are vitally interested in peeling away the next layer of mystery enveloping the universe! If Einstein had one passion, it was just to understand how the entire mechanism of creation works from the sub-atomic to the inter-galactic. If Einstein had one unique talent, it was his irreverence for conventional thinking and a special ability to see and visualize from an entirely new viewpoint. His unconventionality ultimately made him successful AND endearing.
Isaacson's biography is well-worth reading and then sharing with a friend who also has a spark of curiosity about the man and his place in scientific and popular history. Einstein was a man of peace who loved sailing and music, yet in many chapters of his life peace eluded him due to events beyond his control. The reader can sympathize with Einstein when his last great quest for a unified field theory continued to elude him (despite newspaper headlines that he was on the verge of a breakthrough) and his health failed him while equations continued to flow from his pen. I hope his life story will encourage a new generation of thinkers to follow imaginations and never lose their curiosity. Debra Lawrence, Author of [[ASIN:097974590X THE 3:00 PM SECRET: Live Slim and Strong, Live Your Dreams]]
|
|
|
Copyright 2008 - RailroadBookstore.com
| |
