The famous scientist presents his thoughts on life, the world, and his scientific labors. Topic include Good and Evil, Religion and Science, Active Pacifism and others.
Albert Einstein did not impress his first teachers. They found him a dreamy child without an especially promising future. But some time in his early years he developed what he called "wonder" about the world. Later in life, he remembered two instances from his childhood—his fascination at age five with a compass and his introduction to the lucidity and certainty of geometry—that may have been the first signs of what was to come. From these ordinary beginnings, Einstein became one of the greatest scientific thinkers of all time. This illuminating biography describes in understandable language the experiments and revolutionary theories that flowed from Einstein's imagination and intellect—from his theory of relativity, which changed our conception of the universe and our place in it, to his search for a unified field theory that would explain all of the forces in the universe.
Examines the personality as well as the thought process which led this physicist to his discoveries which have helped shape our understanding of the natural world.
With commentary by the greatest physicist of our time, Stephen Hawking, this anthology has garnered impressive reviews. PW has called it “a gem of a collection” while New Scientist magazine notes the “thrill of reading Einstein’s own words.” From the writings that revealed the famous Theory of Relativity, to other papers that shook the scientific world of the 20th century, A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion belongs in every science fan’s library.
Much has been written about Albert Einstein, technical and biographical, but very little remains as valuable as this unique hybrid of a book written by Einstein’s colleague and contemporary. Both rich in personal insights and grounded in a deep knowledge of twentieth-century science, Phillip Frank's biography anchors the reader with a lucid overview of physics and draws an intimate portrait of the Nobel Prize?winner.
In 1903, despite the vehement objections of his parents, Albert Einstein married Mileva Maric, the companion, colleague, and confidante whose influence on his most creative years has given rise to much speculation. Beginning in 1897, after Einstein and Maric met as students at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic, and ending shortly after their marriage, these fifty-four love letters offer a rare glimpse into Einstein's relationship with his first wife while shedding light on his intellectual development in the period before the annus mirabilis of 1905. Unlike the picture of Einstein the lone, isolated thinker of Princeton, he appears here both as the burgeoning enfant terrible of science and as an amorous young man beset, along with his fiance, by financial and personal struggles—among them the illegitimate birth of their daughter, whose existence is known only by these letters. Describing his conflicts with professors and other scientists, his arguments with his mother over Maric, and his difficulty obtaining an academic position after graduation, the letters enable us to reconstruct the youthful Einstein with an unprecedented immediacy. His love for Maric, whom he describes as "a creature who is my equal, and who is as strong and independent as I am," brings forth his serious as well as playful, often theatrical nature. After their marriage, however, Maric becomes less his intellectual companion, and, failing to acquire a teaching certificate, she subordinates her professional goals to his. In the final letters Einstein has obtained a position at the Swiss Patent Office and mentions their daughter one last time to his wife in Hungary, where she is assumed to have placed the girl in the care of relatives. Informative, entertaining, and often very moving, this collection of letters captures for scientists and general readers alike a little known yet crucial period in Einstein's life.
These 54 love letters offer a rare glimpse into Einstein's relationship with his first wife, while shedding light on his early intellectual development. Informative, entertaining, and often moving, this collection captures a little known yet crucial period in the scientist's life. 12 halftones. 2 line illustrations.
This controversial account of Albert Einstein's scandalous personal life challenges the image of this genius, painting a shocking portrait that exposes him as "an adulterous, egomaniacal misogynist who may have even beaten his first wife"(The New York Times Sunday Magazine). Photos.
This controversial account of Albert Einstein's scandalous personal life challenges the image of this genius, painting a shocking portrait that exposes him as "an adulterous, egomaniacal misogynist who may have even beaten his first wife"The New York Times Sunday Magazine. Photos.
Mileva Maric was a remarkable woman by any measure. One of the first women to study physics at a European university, she met and fell in love with a young physicist whose revolutionary theories would shortly transform our understanding of the universe. Mileva's marriage to Albert Einstein and the birth of their three children (the first, Lieserl, was born before the two were married) derailed her career as a physicist. Ensuing marital difficulties also threw Mileva into a severe depression for years after she and Albert separated in 1916 and divorced three years later. The subject of much speculation on the part of Einstein biographers, Mileva's life has remained shrouded in mystery and half-truth.
In Albert's Shadow, a treasure trove of seventy previously unpublished letters and cards written by Mileva to Helene Savic, an intimate friend from her university days, brings Mileva's life and marriage into focus more sharply than ever before. Edited and introduced by Helene Savic's grandson, Milan Popovic, this revealing and often touching epistolatary biography offers a new and less-than-flattering perspective on the private life of Albert Einstein and provides a compelling portrait of a supportive and brilliant woman whose world-famous husband betrayed her deep affections. Deftly placed into their biographical and historical context by Popovic, these letters draw an intriguing picture of intellectual life in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Through Mileva's letters — and the notes Albert appended to them — Popovic charts the course of Mileva's life and her relationship with Albert, from their happy years through their divorce and to Mileva'stroubled life after Albert. Mileva's letters describe their mutual infatuation; her strained relations with Albert's parents, who opposed the marriage; and her experiences at university. Shortly after their marriage in 1903, Mileva slowly comes to realize that science has a greater hold on Albert's attention than she does, and her tragic letters to Helene after 1909 lay bare her anguish at his growing distance (a situation made worse by Albert's secret affair with his cousin Elsa). After the divorce, Mileva's letters chronicle the depression with which she struggled for the rest of her life, and describe the lives of her and Albert's two surviving children, the youngest of whom, Eduard, had developed schizophrenia. The letters end in 1940 with Europe at war. Although Helene Savic died four years later, the correspondence she and her family preserved now offer unprecedented insights into the life of the twentieth century's greatest mind and the tragic story of his tormented first wife.
This book is draw from actual published lectures given by the Father of Relativity on the nature and implications of his theory.
In Einstein in Love, Dennis Overbye has written the first profile of the great scientist to focus exclusively on his early adulthood, when his major discoveries were made. It reveals Einstein to be very much a young man of his time-draft dodger, self-styled bohemian, poet, violinist, and cocky, charismatic genius who left personal and professional chaos in his wake. Drawing upon hundreds of unpublished letters and a decade of research, Einstein in Love is a penetrating portrait of the modern era's most influential thinker.
2005 has been designated "World Year of Physics" to celebrate the publication of Einstein's Theory of Relativity one hundred years ago. In commemoration of this landmark anniversary, Oxford University Press brings Abraham Pais' major work on Einstein's life and work to a whole new generation of readers.
Since the death of Albert Einstein in 1955 there have been many books and articles written about the man and a number of attempts to "explain" relativity. Throughout the preparation of this book, Pais has had complete access to the Einstein Archives and the invaluable guidance of the late Helen Dukas—formerly Einstein's private secretary Written with Pais' intimate and incomparable knowledge of Einstein, Subtle is the Lord will delight and inspire anyone fascinated by the man whose revolutionary ideas have defined modern physics.
"Accurate, witty and clear as brook water, it is a work against which future scientific biographies will be measured."--New York Times Book Review.
Next book list: Books on Legendary Explorer and Discover Christopher Columbus >>