Albert Einstein: A Biography Paperback – May 1, 1998

Years ago I read a biography of Einstein by Clark, back in the seventies, and I thought I knew everything about this intellectual hero that I wanted to.

But Folsing really has fleshed out Albert for us. Not only a leftist and a paradoxical pacifist (as I'd already learned), but a devotee of Spinoza and a dreadfully active ladies' man.

Albert Einstein: A Biography, by Albrecht Folsing, is a comprehensive and very readable biography of the 20th century's greatest scientist. A reader's lack of a college-level scientific background will not diminish the appeal and understanding of this book. Einstein's insights on the relativity and quantum theories are presented with minimum jargon and are understandable by attentive reading if the reader can temporarily set aside Newtonian concepts.Albert Einstein: A Biography

This is the BEST biography of Einstein that I have read. The writing style is 'European' in that all dimensions of Einstein are explored and referenced. A strong point of this biography is the extensive research and documentation that backs up the text. Einstein's life in science AND out of it are explored thoroughly. My only quibble is that the quality of pictures in the text is shoddy. I have the Penguin edition. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. If you want a quick superficial biography try Banesh Hoffman's Einstein (still in print?). If you want a fairly good biography I recommend Denis Brian's Einstein. If you want a very precise and detail biography get this one and enjoy!

At the height of Einstein's career it was joked that only about a dozen people in the entire world actually understood the master's theory of relativity, which leads to the question of whether we mere mortals should even attempt this 882-page tome. The answer is a resounding yes. Albrecht Holsing never forgets that he is writing a biography, not a physics text. The result is a colorful biography of a learning disabled civil servant with perhaps the most fertile imagination in the history of science. Holsing's Einstein is a man without a country, an unabashed lover, an avowed pacifist, a born-again Zionist, bon vivant and alleged subversive. And yes, smart and eccentric as hell.
Between 1905 and 1920 Einstein, a patent claims inspector, produced a series of papers on the subject of physics so outlandish that the world collectively gasped. Put simply, Einstein postulated connections between dimensions that had been considered unbridgeable until his day. He was not a scientist in the way we traditionally think of the discipline. He was in reality a science fiction writer who challenged the white coats to prove he was wrong. Most of the time they could not, to their own amazement. And when they did, he seemed to delight even more. God, he remarked, may be mysterious, but never malevolent. For Einstein the universe was a playground.
Einstein enjoyed wonderful timing. By 1900 the telescope and the microscope had been perfected to the point that the bigness and the smallness of the natural world began crashing into the complacency of Newtonian physics and Euclidean geometry. Einstein, whose own spacial-temporal development was delayed until early adulthood, began to play with possibilities. Is the universe so big that the traditional absolute theorems of geometry might be disproved? Consider the classic geometric postulate that two parallel lines will stretch into infinity without ever touching. Einstein dared to question such a basic law in several ways: if the universe itself is not linear but perhaps curved, the lines would eventually meet. And second, what influence would gravitation play upon these two lines? It was these daring interplays of factors that set Einstein apart and led to his famous speculations about relationships between mass, time, and energy.
It is a credit to Holsing that he is able to describe Einstein's mental journeys as lucidly as he does. This is not to say there is no hard work required. Einstein had a hand in nearly all branches of physics, including optics, electricity, and radiation, and he was in constant dialogue with other noted thinkers of his age, including Niels Bohr and Max Planck. For an older reader unfamiliar with quantum physics, the scientific debates over the nature of light may as well be written in Vulcan. Be that as it may, the faithful reader will probably take away enough science to be dazzled and deeply impressed when Einstein's most audacious speculation-that light is bent by gravitational pull-is dramatically proven during a total eclipse of the sun in 1918.
For all practical purposes, Einstein's creative career ended around 1920, the same time he began to attract respectable university and lecture fees. The years between 1920 and 1955 are remarkable in their own way: Einstein became one of the world's most recognized celebrities in an era of renewed interest in popular science. Like many celebrities he grumbled about the distractions but rarely missed a good dinner. Universities that hired the grand thinker after 1920 did so at their own risk: Einstein traveled widely and allowed his life to be governed by the Muse of creativity. He spent three decades working unsuccessfully to eliminate mathematical kinks from his general theory of relativity. [Ironically, since 1995 astronomical discoveries of the magnitude of dust and gas in the universe have tended to smooth out the rough edges of the relativity theory.]
Although he lived and worked in Germany for many years, Einstein carried a deep-seated suspicion of German militarism. He was disillusioned with the conduct of most of his scientific colleagues during World War I, and he was early to see the direction of Nazi policy. Relocating to Princeton, New Jersey, he lived the final two decades of his life in the United States. As Folsing tells it, the United States government kept Einstein at arm's length, perhaps due to a 1930 speech in which he remarked that if as few as 2% of a nation's draftees refused to serve, its military force would crumble. The speech made Einstein an icon among pacifists, and "2%" buttons became popular leftist items throughout the 1930's. Given Einstein's political leanings, it is one of history's better fortunes that Franklin Roosevelt took seriously Einstein's warnings about German development of a fission bomb. However, Einstein was considered too much of a security risk to be considered for the Manhattan Project and was systematically excluded from any information about the project.
Folsing chronicles the struggles of Einstein's two marriages and the somewhat flagrant adulteries of his middle years. Contrary to popular belief, Einstein was in fact a handsome and captivating younger man. It was only in later years that hygiene and fashion tended to deteriorate, perhaps as a statement of sorts to his prim Princeton neighbors. Folsing captures Einstein's wit: once, when the mayor of his town apologized for sewerage fumes from a treatment plant wafting toward the Einstein residence, the good scientist confessed that on occasion he had "returned the compliment."

Doesn't give as much info about personal life of Einstein. that is what i was hoping to get. sorry a snooze otherwise

Very good product thanks.

It's one of the most interessant books I have ever read. A walk into Einstein's genius from his childhood till the late years. Well written.