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Binding: Audio CD
Dewey Decimal Number: 530.092
EAN: 9780743561389
ISBN: 0743561384
Label: Simon & Schuster Audio
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster Audio
Number Of Items: 18
Publication Date: April 10, 2007
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Sales Rank: 67282
Studio: Simon & Schuster Audio
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Editorial Review:
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.
Amazon.com Review:
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 beable 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--whotutored me, helped me learn the physics, and checked various versions ofmy book. I also learned the tensor calculus underlying generalrelativity, but tried to avoid spending too much time on it in the book.I wanted to capture the imaginative beauty of Einstein's scientificleaps, but I hope folks who want to delve more deeply into the sciencewill read Einstein books by such scientists as Abraham Pais, JeremyBernstein, Brian Greene, and others.
Amazon.com: That Einstein was a clerk in the Swiss Patent Office when herevolutionized our understanding of the physical world has often beentreated as ironic or even absurd. But you argue that in many ways histime there fostered his discoveries. Could you explain?
Isaacson: I think he was lucky to be at the patent office rather than serving asan acolyte in the academy trying to please senior professors and teachthe conventional wisdom. As a patent examiner, he got to visualize thephysical realities underlying scientific concepts. He had a boss whotold him to question every premise and assumption. And as Peter Galisonshows in Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps, many of the patentapplications involved synchronizing clocks using signals that traveledat the speed of light. So with his office-mate Michele Besso as asounding 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 apractical scientist and tinkerer than the usual image of the wild-hairedprofessor, and more like your previous biographical subject, themultitalented but eminently earthly Benjamin Franklin. Did you seeconnections between them?
Isaacson: I like writing about creativity, and that's what Franklin and Einsteinshared. They also had great curiosity and imagination. But Franklin wasa more practical man who was not very theoretical, and Einstein was theopposite in that regard.
Amazon.com: Of the many legends that have accumulated around Einstein, what didyou find to be least true? Most true?
Isaacson: The least true legend is that he failed math as a schoolboy. He wasactually great in math, because he could visualize equations. He knewthey were nature's brushstrokes for painting her wonders. For example, hecould look at Maxwell's equations and marvel at what it would be like toride alongside a light wave, and he could look at Max Planck's equationsabout radiation and realize that Planck's constant meant that light wasa particle as well as a wave. The most true legend is how rebellious anddefiant of authority he was. You see it in his politics, his personallife, 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 thechance to get to know Einstein so well, did he remind you of anyone fromour day who shares at least some of his remarkable qualities?
Isaacson: There are many creative scientists, most notably Stephen Hawking, whowrote the essay on Einstein as 'Person of the Century' when I was editorof Time. In the world of technology, Steve Jobs has the same creativeimagination and ability to think differently that distinguishedEinstein, and Bill Gates has the same intellectual intensity. I wish Iknew politicians who had the creativity and human instincts of Einstein,or for that matter the wise feel for our common values of BenjaminFranklin.
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Customer Reviews Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Wonderful
An enlightening look at Einstein's life from birth to death and everythinig inbetween. There was just enough discusion of physics to give you a background, but comprehendable to the non-physists of the world. The author covered the creation of the theory of relativity, but it was not the focus of the book. It rather focused on Einstein's aproach to life, his way of thinking and philosophies that caused him to create his theories. I found the book a comprehensive view of his life and entirely enjoyable. ... Read More
Rating: - Einstein, Walter Isaacson's masterly biography.
A page turner. Full of the life of Einstein and his fellow scientists in his day. Interesting insights into the person and his work. Easy to understand explanations of the science and theories. A tireless work of research and building up in a logical order of a life filled with the excitement of discovery, the pressure to be first in formulating ideas, to maintain friendships and remain true to basic human dignity in the face of an emerging ruthless political system. The sadness of drifting off on the seemingly ... Read More
Rating:  - Good, but not to the level of Isaacson's "Franklin"
It is interesting to see that 4 years after Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin: An American Life he chose to write about another rebel scientist in Albert Einstein. While the two men make a great compare/contrast it doesn't make it any easier for the author writing the books (NOTE: At no point during "Einstein" does Isaacson try to compare/contrast the two). While writing on Franklin most readers can grasp the scientific and political thoughts that are being discussed. This is not necessarily true of the readers of ... Read More
Rating: - Einstein's Life
This is an outstanding life of Einstein; it portrays his genius at every stage of life, and leads to understanding his positions on issues both scientific and political.
Rating: - Great peek into the brain and being of the man
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R97YEZJZMMBZG My personal opinion and impression of this complicated life story
Einstein: His Life and Universe |
