Abstract
Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson, Simon and Schuster, 704 pages, 2007, $32.
A search in the books section of Amazon.com for the keywords “Books > Einstein” returns a staggering 64,661 results. A more restricted search for “Books > Biographies and Memoirs > Einstein” returns 341 results. The latest entry in this long selection of biographies is Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson. Is there anything in it that cannot easily be found in the 340 other biographies? Happily, yes.
This is the first major biography to appear after new Einstein papers became public in 2006. While Isaacson makes use of this information, which adds shading and texture to Einstein's early years, there are no dramatic new revelations. The impact of this new biography is not that it breaks new ground in Einstein studies, but rather that it paints a complete picture of Einstein the scientist, Einstein the public persona, and Einstein the complex human being.
Biographies of Einstein usually concentrate on one or maybe two of three major aspects of his life: his science, his sociopolitical views, and his personal life (famously dismissed by Einstein as the “merely personal”). Isaacson's ambitious book tackles all three. He succeeds, as so many other biographers have failed, in weaving the various strands of Einstein's personality into a tapestry of a complete person–in some respects single-minded and focused, and in other ways highly complex and unpredictable. In Isaacson's hands, the personal life of Einstein helps us to understand the source of his scientific inspiration, and understanding his approach to science illuminates aspects of his personal life.
Isaacson does not allow the reader to be twisted up in curved space but keeps the reader's feet on the ground by stressing the underlying principles guiding Einstein.
Any biography of Einstein is incomplete without a discussion of his scientific legacy. With the notable exception of Abraham Pais's scientific biography, Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein, biographies focusing on Einstein's contributions to science often present a sort of “relativity for dummies.” Typical presentations leave non-experts confused and experts dismayed by inaccuracies in presenting the science. Here, Isaacson writes on scientific subjects with authority and a feel for the key concepts. The scientific aspects of the book are clearly presented for the public, and remarkably, only very occasionally will an expert physicist feel the subject could be presented in a better way.
Except for resorting to the well-worn and somewhat old-fashioned concept of a particle's mass increasing with velocity, Isaacson's explanation of the special theory of relativity is clear, and as in Einstein's 1905 paper, grounded in thought experiments. While discussing the influence of Ernst Mach and other philosophers on Einstein's evolving ideas about space and time, Isaacson does not get bogged down in the philosophy of science. Rather, much like Einstein, Isaacson delves into philosophy only as deeply as necessary to get to the underlying physical principles. Isaacson chooses (where others should but usually do not) to explain special relativity as a symmetry (or invariance) principle; in this case that the laws of nature are the same to all observers moving at constant velocity relative to one another.
Isaacson's chapters on Einstein's long path to his general theory of relativity again explain the underlying physics based on a key principle–the equivalence principle of gravity and acceleration. Isaacson does not allow the reader to be twisted up in curved space or mathematical formalism but keeps the reader's feet on the ground by stressing the underlying principles guiding Einstein.
Einstein first realized the importance of the equivalence principle in “the happiest thought of my life” while sitting in his chair in the Bern patent office in November 1907. Between that flash of insight and his finished theory of gravity in November 1915, Einstein moved from the patent office to university positions in Bern, Zurich, Prague, Zurich again, and finally Berlin, all while his marriage deteriorated and he suffered a variety of physical ailments. Isaacson documents Einstein's intellectual journey, as well as his personal journey, during this remarkable period. Later, he effectively parallels Einstein's non-conformity in merrily following his own path in his miracle year of 1905 with his non-conformity in turning his back to the mainstream of modern physics and embarking on a lonely, quixotic (and unsuccessful) quest for a unified field theory during the last 25 years of his life.
Einstein's recognition by the public was unprecedented for a scientist. Isaacson explores Einstein's ambivalence about his popular acclaim. At times he seemed genuinely to enjoy the adulation of the public, while at other times he resented public intrusiveness. Isaacson portrays Einstein as very human in this regard, craving attention and fame, but on his own terms. Einstein naïvely thought that he could master the publicity beast as he had mastered theories of space and time. Of course, life does not work that way, even for Einstein.
Perhaps it was inevitable that the combination of Einstein's fame, his boldness in proposing new ideas, and his deeply felt sociopolitical beliefs would drag him into controversial areas of politics and religion. No matter what the circumstances, Einstein acted as a good scientist, changing his model in light of new data while not abandoning principles he believed to be true. For example, in the early 1930s Einstein called for draft resistance in the United States when he thought, “as soon as economic conditions improve, he [Hitler] will no longer be important.” After 1933 and Hitler's rise to power, Einstein reversed his stand on draft resistance as circumstances changed.
Although he was capable of finding his way in dealing with the complexities of the physical world, at times Einstein seemed lost when dealing with human nature. He had a great love of people in the abstract but struggled to sustain a love for any individual, especially when it interfered with his scientific life. In no other biography is this aspect of Einstein's personality treated as completely. Isaacson documents Einstein's shock and sadness at the death of his father, his sister Maja, his second wife Elsa, and the pain caused by his second son Eduard's mental illness. He used science as a refuge from painful personal problems. Isaacson beautifully summarizes Einstein's inner struggle to deal with those he loved and who loved him by quoting from Einstein's talk at a celebration of physicist Max Planck's sixtieth birthday: “One of the strongest motives that leads men of art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness. Such men make this cosmos and its construction the pivot of their emotional life, in order to find the peace and security which they cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.” Isaacson notes that although Einstein said this of Planck, it seemed to convey more about the narrow whirlpool of personal experience of Einstein himself.
While other biographies may drill deeper into one particular aspect of Einstein life, none has succeeded as well as Einstein: His Life and Universe in providing the complete picture. Written in an authoritative voice, it is accessible to a lay audience, and satisfying to a physicist. It is worthwhile even for those who have read several Einstein biographies.