Customer Reviews

Introducing Einstein

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The conventional wisdom is that Albert Einstein was a transcendent genius whose development of the concepts of relativity was a generation ahead of his time. Sir Arthur Eddington was once told that he was in distinguished company, as he was one of only three people who understood Einstein's theories of relativity. Eddington paused for a moment and when asked what he was thinking, responded, "I am trying to think who the third person would be." However, this conventional is not the case, the relativity theories of Einstein were a natural progression of centuries of scientific thought.

This book, in a very entertaining yet efficient way, recapitulates the history of science that led to Einstein's great discoveries. It goes all the way back to the Egyptians, Babylonians and Greeks to lay the mathematical foundations for understanding relativity. Using cartoons, captions and an occasional formula, the authors take you through the history of physics, astronomy, and some political and biographical history and end up with a brief explanation of the consequences of relativity.

It is another conventional wisdom that relativity is so complicated that very few can actually understand it. That is true if your goal is complete understanding, which requires very advanced mathematics. However, if you want to just understand it, then it is possible to learn it, and with this book you will not only learn it but have fun doing so.

This was an exciting book to read and it was informative in its most basic terms regarding Einstein's theory of special relativity. I learnt the theory in a few months after reading the book a few times although it was really just the outline of the processes of his equation but it was good enough for me to understand the structure, concept and laws of the theory. It is a good book to buy for anyone wanting to know the fundamental rules of the special theory of relativity and how it came into being. The pictures and words make it a fun book for any non professional.