Customer Reviews

Subtle is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein

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This book is a very good *scientific* biography of Einstein. This is both its strength and weakness. It is a strength because the author is clearly very knowledgeable about the subject, and therefore I couldn't think of a better book than this one. However, to appreciate the ins and outs of the scientific work of Einstein, you need to be a scientist yourself, or at least be very interested in the subject, because Pais does not avoid technical discussions. Not at all.

Therefore, for people without knowledge on this level, the book is not so accessible (I think), which may lead to disappointments. However, for this group of readers there is also good news: the author has organized the book into two interwoven 'sections': a part that is purely biographical and contains no technical discussions, and a technical part. The two parts are easily recognizable in the table of contents. This makes the book interesting and useful for a broad public.

Summarizing: this high quality book makes no light reading, but it is worth the effort, and the money.

Subtle is the Lord is a scholarly biography that tries to illuminate both the life and work of Albert Einstein. There is none of the sensationalism here of some other recent biographies. The picture that emerges is of a complex character who defies the iconic images - either of the absent-minded professor, or the man whose work laid the foundations for the atomic bomb - and whose interests and concerns ranged far beyond the abstruse theoretical physics that made him celebrated even in his own lifetime. It is a fascinating story, and one which left me as ever wondering as to the origins of such singular genius. Pais does not spare the reader the details of Einstein's scientific achievements, and inevitably that means that without a degree in physics or mathematics large sections of the book would be hard going indeed. With some familiarity with the physics though, this is a comprehensive and inspiring account of some of the great scientific revolutions of the century.

that is what Einstein had to say, when in 1921 he was confronted with rumours that a non-zero aether drift had been discovered by Dayton Miller, a one-time junior of Albert Michaelson. When asked what he meant by this, he remarked "Nature hides her secrets because of her essential loftiness, but not by means of ruse". He is also said to have opined that he had "not for a moment taken [Miller's results] seriously". That was the kind of faith that Albert Einstein had in the laws of Nature that he discovered...a deep faith not capable of rational foundation..

Albert Einstein...the man...the philosopher...the scientist...the physicist...the humanist...the legend...so much has already been written about this one extraordinary human being, that you can be forgiven for grimacing when you see this book and thinking, 'oh, no ! not another one in this never-ending craze'...but think again...this is THE definitive scientific biography of Herr Professor Einstein, coming as it is from a physicist who was close to this great man towards the end of his life. Abraham Pais does a superb job of presenting the state of physics before Einstein, how he changed that and how it has evolved since his times. Science was Einstein's life, his devotion, his refuge, and his source of detachment...Science was his religion...In order to understand the man, then, it is necessary to follow his scientific ways of thinking and doing...and that is what the book precisely does...

One more thing...this is not a layman's book...if you have only a little idea of physics, and are averse to mathematical details, then look elsewhere...this is not for you...but if you have that 'holy curiosity' and 'wonderment of the spectacle that is science', with loads of perseverance, this book does an excellent job of satisfying that quest...it can inspire you to seek greater heights of understanding...(there are tons of references to other more detailed texts)...in the end, you will have had but just a glimpse of Einstein's oeuvre. Thank you.

This is a beautifully written book. I have been intrigued by the personality of Albert Einstein since my childhood (when I saw a postage stamp with his portrait and the famous equation "E=mc^2"), and I always wanted to know what exactly has made him so famous. During my school years I loved to read books about physics, and always enjoyed lessons of physics in school. By that time I thought that I have really good grasp of physics, but still it seemed strange to me why, when the special theory of relativity was explained well enough in many accessible books, the general theory was only mentioned as "the greatest achievement of human mind", but it was never explained in detail, only some of its consequences, like the precession of Mercury's orbit or starlight bending by the Sun, were described, but nobody explained from where these 43" or 1,75" came from ! When in 1989 I bought this book, I enjoyed reading about the details of Einstein's biography, but I was quite shocked that most of the equations in the part about the general relativity were completely beyond my understanding. This fact had been irritating me for a number of years, until in 2002 I have decided to take the plunge and try to learn the general relativity properly. This has been a tough going and took almost two years, but by the end I could really understand what the terms, like the metric tensor, Christoffel symbols or R^i_jkl do really mean, or why R_ij-(1/2)*g_ij*R=k*T_ij, and I was also absolutely stunned by the beauty of this theory. This prompted me not only to read lots of other books about the relativity (MTW, Weinberg, Wald, Hawking & Ellis and many others), but also to learn the classical electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, and now I'm trying to learn the quantum field theory - all this thanks to this excellent book !

Pais's book is the best scientific biography of Einstein to date. The author, as an eminent particle physicist turned historian, has the ability to understand and portray Einstein's work as few others could. Foelsing's biography is better for depicting Einstein's "life and times", and the scientific milieu in which Einstein came to maturity.

I glanced quickly through this book some years ago at an airport book store. Somehow an impression of beauty and excellence settled in my mind. Finally I bought the book, just before a 6-week holiday period. Full of anticipation I started to read. Yes this is an excellent book and I agree with all the jubilant comments on the backcover. Pais takes his readers on a journey. A journey with beautiful vistas on the life and works of the great Albert Einstein. It is not an easy journey with just beautiful vistas though; I got often stuck in quagmires of physics concepts, mysterious formulae, historical dates and hundreds of names of physicists. Sometimes I first had to drain the marsh (i.e. go to other resources to find clarification on certain ideas of some physicist; fortunately such resources are now readily available thanks to Internet and Wikipedia) before being able to move on to the next vista point. In conclusion: this book is for physicists and for those that like to be taken on a tough but rewarding journey.

This is a scientific biography written by a physicist and friend of Einstein's. Only about 20% of the book is non-technical biography, the rest being a very technical discussion of Einstein's physics, the prior work that influenced it, and its impact. Being a friend of Einstein's, the author puts him in the best possible light. For instance, missing is any reference to the daughter he fathered with his first wife Mileva before they were married, the reasons for their divorce, the events surrounding his relationship with his second wife, etc. (To be fair, before the unsealing of many of Einstein's personal papers, the existence of this daughter was a well-kept secret; one almost definitely unknown to the author of this book.) Of more concern is a lack of very much discussion of most of his non-physics related interactions, so if you want the personal Einstein there are better, more modern, books. However, if you want to know more about Einstein's physics, its development and its impact, then this book is a very good choice, providing that you have the necessary background. The book contains a very extensive timeline of Einstein's life, especially of the events that had a bearing on his technical work. This timeline should be a great reference for Einstein's life as most of the events are referenced to specific days, not just to the year of its occurrence.

As noted the author is a physicist and the book is written from that perspective. He goes into Einstein's physics in considerable detail so a physics background is necessary to get the most from this book. For the most part, there is no attempt to provide the necessary scientific background for these discussions, so if you are completely ignorant of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics or theoretical physics in general, you will likely find yourself having to skip over large portions of the text. There are a lot of sentences that contain "it is well known from ...that ...", so if this is not well known to you, you may have to skip over that portion of the text, and perhaps the rest of the chapter. There is also a lot of mathematical notation that is not explained or developed, so you may be lost if you are unfamiliar with it. However, the book is very good for those with the necessary background because it describes how Einstein developed his physics and what influenced this development.

I recommend this book for people with some background in physics; the more the better. This might be a five star book for a theoretical physicist, but only a one or two star book for someone with little or none of the necessary background. On average, I rated it as a four star book because, while I do not have all of the necessary background, I had enough to follow the discussion. I am also very interested in the development of Einstein's ideas, so this book was a natural for me. I only wish that I had a better background, because then, for me, it might have been a five star book, so please consider this rating from that perspective.

A scientifically sophisticated but also highly sensitive portrait of the great man. It is a biography written for physicists or students of physics, among whom I count myself fortunate to be. Strongly recommended.

This is a well-written and entertaining biography of one of the world's greatest and most famous physicists: his life, his times, and especially his science. As other reviewers have correctly emphasized, this book does not shy away from mathematical formulas and details of the physics. While it does contain a lot of "traditional biographical" information, there is a heavy emphasis on the science -- which is great if you love physics and have the background, but I doubt many would enjoy that part.

The author (Pais) was an eminent theoretical physicist who knew Einstein near the end of Einstein's life.

Among the interesting tidbits I learned: Contrary to the lore I had always heard, Einstein was a top-notch student. Also, back in his day it was much harder than today to get a job in physics research, and university positions didn't pay well either. Even Einstein had trouble initially finding an academic job ! Of course, when he (working at a patent office) published a series of ground-breaking papers on theoretical physics, his academic career took off. It was also interesting to learn how little he knew about the scientific literature and how much he invented and re-invented physics on his own, especially when he was in isolation in the patent office. It seems all the great ones work that way, R. Feynman being another example that comes to mind.

I have really enjoyed reading A. Pais' biography of Einstein. The book is a very detailed scientific biography. And I would like to stress this point: if you are looking for anecdotes or gossips this is not your book. The main goal of the author is to expose the ideas and scientific achievements of Einstein, explaining in detail his theories. This is a taugh book for someone without a physics background, because Pais has written a book on the physics of the last century, with a detailed account of the origin and development of relativity and quantum theories. And it uses all the mathematical concepts physicists are familiar with.
Otherwise, this is the best biography of Einstein I have read.