Einstein: His Life and Universe

by Walter Isaacson

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

it is possible to explore how the private side of Einstein—his nonconformist personality, his instincts as a rebel, his curiosity, his passions and detachments

As with the special theory, his thinking had

evolved through thought experiments.

Einstein remained consistent in his willingness to be a serenely amused loner who was comfortable not conforming.

He made imaginative leaps and discerned great principles through thought experiments rather than by methodical inductions based on experimental data.

What science teaches us, very significantly, is the correlation between factual evidence and general theories,

later, as a theorist, his success came not from the brute strength of his mental processing power but from his imagination and creativity.

He could construct complex equations, but more important, he knew that math is the language nature uses to describe her wonders.

His success came from questioning conventional wisdom, challenging authority, and marveling at mysteries that struck others as mundane.

“It is important to foster individuality,” he said, “for only the individual can produce the new ideas.”8

for his slow verbal development, he came to believe that it allowed him to observe with wonder the everyday phenomena that others took for granted.

he generally preferred to think in pictures, most notably in famous thought experiments, such as imagining watching lightning strikes from a moving train or experiencing gravity while inside a falling elevator. “I very rarely think in words at all,” he later told a psychologist. “A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.

“persistence and tenacity were obviously already part of his character.”

the young Einstein’s ability to systemize (identify the laws that govern a system) was far greater than his ability to empathize (sense and care about what other humans are feeling),

“I believe that love is a better teacher than a sense of duty,

“like all great beauty, his music was pure simplicity.

Throughout his life, Albert Einstein would retain the intuition and the awe of a child. He never lost his sense of wonder

“In all those years, I never saw him reading any light literature. Nor did I ever see him in the company of schoolmates or other boys his age.”34

“Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, an attitude which has never again left me,

“When a person can take pleasure in marching in step to a piece of music it is enough to make me despise him. He has been given his big brain only by mistake.

“A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.

His work habits showed his ability to concentrate,

“Even in a large, quite noisy group, he could withdraw to the sofa, take pen and paper in hand, set the inkstand precariously on the armrest, and lose himself so completely in a problem that

the conversation of many voices stimulated rather th...

It was even possible to learn—and truly understand—the laws of math and physics that way. Rote drills,

memorization, and force-fed facts were avoided.

“it made me clearly realize how much superior an education based on free action and personal responsibility is to one relying on outward authority.

“Visual understanding is the essential and only true means of

teaching how to judge things correctly,

That conflicting admixture of playfulness and seriousness, of insouciance and intensity, of intimacy and detachment—so peculiar yet also so evident in Einstein as well—must have appealed to him.

Besso had a delightful intellect, but he lacked focus, drive, and diligence.

It reinforced one of his ingenious talents: the ability to conduct thought experiments in which he could visualize how a theory would play out in practice. It also helped him peel off the irrelevant facts that surrounded a problem.

philosophy: David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, Ernst Mach’s Analysis of the Sensations and Mechanics and Its Development,

Hume was skeptical about any knowledge other than what could be directly perceived by the senses.

“Concepts have meaning only if we can point to objects to

which they refer and to the rules by which they are assigned to these objects.”

“intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience.”8

Some scientific theories depend primarily on induction: analyzing a lot of experimental findings and then finding theories that

explain the empirical patterns. Others depend more on deduction: starting with elegant principles and postulates that are embraced as holy and then deducing the consequences from them.

all three of his epochal papers in 1905 begin by asserting his intention to pursue a deductive approach.

The simplest picture one can form about the creation of an empirical science is along the lines of an inductive method. Individual facts are selected and grouped together so that the laws that connect them become apparent… However, the big advances in scientific knowledge originated in this way only to a small degree… The truly great advances in our understanding of nature originated in a way almost diametrically opposed to induction. The intuitive grasp of the essentials of a large complex of facts leads the scientist to the postulation of a hypothetical basic law or laws. From these laws, he derives his conclusions.

only the discovery of a universal formal principle could lead us to assured results.”

Instead of prepared notes, Einstein used a card-sized strip of paper with scribbles. So the students got to watch him develop his thoughts as he spoke. “We obtained some insight into his working technique,” said Tanner. “We certainly appreciated this more than any stylistically perfect lecture.”

One of his strengths as a thinker, if not as a parent, was that he had the ability, and the inclination, to tune out all distractions, a category that to him sometimes included his children and family. “Even

“It gave me,” said Tanner, “a glimpse into his immense powers of concentration.”8

He is not a good teacher for mentally lazy gentlemen who merely want to fill a notebook and then learn it by heart for an exam; he is not a smooth talker, but anyone wishing to learn honestly how to develop his ideas in physics in an honest way, from deep within, and how to examine all premises carefully and see the pitfalls and the problems in his reflections, will find Einstein a first-class teacher, because all of this is expressed in his lectures, which force the audience to think along.46

What made the flurry of political and personal turmoil in the fall of 1915 so remarkable was that it highlighted Einstein’s ability to concentrate on, and compartmentalize, his scientific endeavors despite all distractions.

As a young man, Einstein had predicted, in a letter to the mother of his first girlfriend, that the joys of science would be a refuge from painful personal emotions.

“For I shall never give up the state of living alone, which has manifested itself as an indescribable blessing.”