Transcending the Speed of Light: Consciousness, Quantum Physics, and the Fifth Dimension Any criticism leveled against Isaacson's book has to be counterbalanced by a recognition of the tremendous effort and importance of the work, such as his ability to recaptured Einstein's life through the many letters by and to him and by an ability to explain many of his most important ideas in a deep and superb way. The missing star in my rating is because of what the book does not do. Occasionally critical of Albert Einstein, ultimately the book is a hagiography. As with the rest of the mainstream, Isaacson is really blind to Einstein's shortcomings. His theory of relativity, on the whole, is a true mish-mash, that, in the last analysis, makes little sense. Several problems with his theory have to do with (1) the arbitrary decision to do away with the ether, and (2) place the subjective view on a pedestal while at the same time eliminate the very consciousness of the viewer as a force in and of itself, or a space (e.g., a 5th dimension of hyperspace for mind). For instance, Isaacson points out that if a lady is on a plane looking down on the Earth, she can't tell if the plane is moving over the Earth or the Earth is moving under a stationary plane. This is a bedrock of Einstein's relativity theory, a highly subjective observation that ignores the elephant in the room, the movement of the Earth around the Sun, the absolute measure Einstein keeps trying to eliminate.The Michelson-Morley experiment didn't do away with the ether. Nor did Einstein. Both simply suggested that the ether could not be detected. So even though Einstein lectures on the ether and states to Lorentz that an ether must exist, he also realized that if indeed it did exist, then his theory of relativity would be wrong. The idea that space can be curved, as Tesla pointed out in the newspapers, is absurd. Since Einstein has ascribed properties to space, it cannot be empty. It is, in fact, the ether, and the reason why light bends around or towards stars is potentially twofold, (a) photons may have mass, and (2) as with all matter, stars are constantly absorbing ether in order to keep their elementary particles spinning.Ether theory explains gravity and its link to acceleration because what we call gravity most likely the absorption of ether by the mass of the planet (or star). According to this theory, we are held to the planet because we are in the way of this constant influx of energy. Had Einstein truly resurrected the ether, (he partly does, as Isaacson notes, once de Broglie's wave theory becomes more prevalent) Einstein may have solved his grand unification theory, but it would have been at the expense of his baby, the theory of relativity.Another problem with his theory is that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. However, as Gamow points out in Thirty Years That Shook Physics, and I point out in my book Transcending the Speed of Light, electrons spin at speeds in excess of the speed of light! Following in the steps of Minkowski who used the imaginary number the square root of negative one to make the one dimension of time equivalent to 3D space, Paul Dirac essentially did the same thing to account for the spinning electron that violated relativity with his Nobel Prize winning equations that tied relativity to quantum mechanics. Isaacson's book completely miscasts Minkowski, doesn't even mention the idea of imaginary numbers (which can only exist in the mind, yet are used to explain the physical world), and thereby helps relegate Minkowski to virtual non-person status. This is a super book, but flawed because of the rose colored glasses that are always used to portray a great thinker with a flawed theory that will ultimately be upturned.