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Albert Einstein: The Life and Death of a Legend
Albert Einstein was a German Jewish physicist. He is considered the best-known and most popular scientist of the 20th century.
In 1905, when he was an unknown young physicist, employed in the Patent Office of Berne, he published his theory of special relativity. In it he incorporated, in a simple theoretical framework based on simple physical postulates, concepts and phenomena previously studied by Henri Poincaré and Hendrik Lorentz. As a logical consequence of this theory, he deduced the most famous equation of mass-energy equivalence, E = mc². That year he published other works that would lay some of the foundations of statistical physics and quantum mechanics.
In 1915, he introduced the theory of general relativity, in which he completely reformulated the concept of gravity. One of the consequences was the emergence of the scientific study of the origin and evolution of the universe by the branch of physics called cosmology. In 1919, when British observations of a solar eclipse confirmed their predictions about the curvature of light, Einstein's theory of general relativity was idolized by the press. Einstein became a popular icon of world-famous science, a privilege available to very few scientists.
In 1905, when he was an unknown young physicist, employed in the Patent Office of Berne, he published his theory of special relativity. In it he incorporated, in a simple theoretical framework based on simple physical postulates, concepts and phenomena previously studied by Henri Poincaré and Hendrik Lorentz. As a logical consequence of this theory, he deduced the most famous equation of mass-energy equivalence, E = mc². That year he published other works that would lay some of the foundations of statistical physics and quantum mechanics.
In 1915, he introduced the theory of general relativity, in which he completely reformulated the concept of gravity. One of the consequences was the emergence of the scientific study of the origin and evolution of the universe by the branch of physics called cosmology. In 1919, when British observations of a solar eclipse confirmed their predictions about the curvature of light, Einstein's theory of general relativity was idolized by the press. Einstein became a popular icon of world-famous science, a privilege available to very few scientists.
38 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 29, 2017
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 13, 2017
This little biography is OK as far as it goes – but that isn't really very far, I'm afraid.
The book is very brief, so the information in it is commendably concise and reasonably well presented. There are some nice photos and a few illustrations to explain things like the photoelectric effect and Brownian motion, although I'm not sure how much clearer they would make matters to a non-scientific reader.
The prose is very flat and reads like a list of events rather than a story or any sort of analysis; that's OK if you just want a sort of longish encyclopaedia article, but not so good for the general reader. It seems plain in a few places that English isn't the writer's first language. For example, talking about Einstein's parents' opposition to his marriage, we read that eventually "his father fell ill with death and consented." This kind of thing doesn't intrude too much, but it's not great to read.
Don't look to this for any real explanation of Einstein's physics. His big ideas in Relativity are mentioned, of course, and they're given a bit of an outline, but there isn't enough here for anyone new to the ideas to learn much about them.
Really what you get in this bite-sized book is a chronology of the basic events in Einstein's life with little analysis or depth to the science. It's an OK read but not a fluent one, so it may do if you just need a bit of basic biographical information. For anything more than that you will need to try Abaham Pais's book or one of the other excellent biographies already published.
The book is very brief, so the information in it is commendably concise and reasonably well presented. There are some nice photos and a few illustrations to explain things like the photoelectric effect and Brownian motion, although I'm not sure how much clearer they would make matters to a non-scientific reader.
The prose is very flat and reads like a list of events rather than a story or any sort of analysis; that's OK if you just want a sort of longish encyclopaedia article, but not so good for the general reader. It seems plain in a few places that English isn't the writer's first language. For example, talking about Einstein's parents' opposition to his marriage, we read that eventually "his father fell ill with death and consented." This kind of thing doesn't intrude too much, but it's not great to read.
Don't look to this for any real explanation of Einstein's physics. His big ideas in Relativity are mentioned, of course, and they're given a bit of an outline, but there isn't enough here for anyone new to the ideas to learn much about them.
Really what you get in this bite-sized book is a chronology of the basic events in Einstein's life with little analysis or depth to the science. It's an OK read but not a fluent one, so it may do if you just need a bit of basic biographical information. For anything more than that you will need to try Abaham Pais's book or one of the other excellent biographies already published.
Displaying 1 of 1 review