Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives [Paperback]

Gerald Holton (Editor), Yehuda Elkana (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 2012

One of the 20th century's most profound thinkers not only transformed the direction of scientific endeavor but also influenced other fields such as psychology, linguistics and ethics. This volume comprises 23 papers delivered at a 1979 symposium and includes examinations of Einstein's impact on scholarship, culture, and more.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, German --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (March 28, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486298795
• ISBN-13: 978-0486298795
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,971,488 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was born in Germany and became an American citizen in 1940. A world-famous theoretical physicist, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics and is renowned for his Theory of Relativity. In addition to his scientific work, Einstein was an influential humanist who spoke widely about politics, ethics, and social causes. After leaving Europe, Einstein taught at Princeton University. His theories were instrumental in shaping the atomic age.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Touching and Insightful, April 11, 2006

By 

Herbert Gintis (Northampton, MA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives (Paperback)

Einstein is certainly one of the most beautiful and concise thinkers of all time. His most famous equations contain fewer than ten characters and can be jotted down in a few seconds. Their implications are still being drawn out by physicists and mathematicians. What many people fail to understand is that Einstein was also an incredibly deep and poetic student of metaphysics and spiritual life. Such sayings as "God does not play Dice," and "God is crafty, but He is not malicious," are both deep and whimsical. This book celebrates this complementary cultural side of the Great Man.

This book does not avoid the complexities of quantum mechanics, special and general relativity, but the reader can easily skip over the equations. The reader who comes away wanting more can turn to Abraham Pais' biography of Einstein, Subtle is the Lord, and Alice Calaprice's compendium of Einstein's sayings.

2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Poop on Einstein, May 18, 2000

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Reader One (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives (Paperback)

This book is an excellent introduction to Einstein - if one happens to be a theoretical physicist with an IQ of 186. In other words, this book is abstruse in the extreme. The essays describing Einstein's theories depend heavily on formulas and equations. This begs the question, "so what is the book for?" Other sections of the book dealing with Einstein and the Bomb draw from Einstein's letters, which is good, but the letters really speak for themselves anyway. The section I thought might interest me, Einstein's perspective on language and thought, turned out to be a bunch of psychobabble that obviously comprises someone's ill-conceived thesis. The tone of the book, furthermore, is sickeningly sycophantic. We all recognize Einstein as a great man. What a pity that this book doesn't bring us any closer to knowing why. The picture on the cover, however, is precious. It looks like Inspector Clouseau on the trail of the dreaded Library Fine Evader. I do not recommend this book to any but scholars who've already read everything else on the subject.