Einstein: His Life and Universe

A Review of Walter Isaacson’s Masterful Biography of Albert Einstein

Jul 8, 2008

Cover: Einstein His Life & Universe , Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Twentieth century icon, Albert Einstein, found himself the center of adulation and controversy, all because he came up with a not-so-simple little formula called E=MC².

Born in Germany in 1879 of Jewish parents, Albert Einstein’s childhood was marked by slow speech and social development, contrasted with a “cheeky rebelliousness” and a “cocky contempt for authority,” according to biographer Walter Isaacson. This rebelliousness caused Einstein no end of problems in school, but likely was the impetus for his penchant for questioning conventional wisdom.

Einstein’s Intense Childhood Curiosity

A simple, but seminal experience when he was four or five years old sparked the future physicist’s curiosity and ultimately set the course of his scientific life. His father had given him a compass one day when he had been sick in bed. The child became fascinated with a mystery that struck most others as mundane. Einstein’s intense curiosity about the magnet’s unseen field is credited as the impetus for his “lifelong devotion to field theories as a way to describe nature.”

E=MC² and the Theory of Relativity

At age 17, Einstein enrolled in the Zurich Polytechnic college where he developed lifelong friendships, and met his future wife and mother of his children, Mileva Maric, As a young father and college graduate, Einstein tried to get a teaching job, but was turned down by every college he applied to. He ended up taking a position in a patent office in Bern, Switzerland instead.

It was here, in 1905, while he reviewed patent applications, that he wrote his famous paper describing his Theory of Special Relativity. However, fame did not come immediately. It took another four years before he even acquired his first position as a junior professor.

Einstein in America

When fame did arrive, it hit in a big way. Einstein became a cause celebré all over the world. He had divorced Maric and married his cousin, Elsa Einstein Lowenthal, by the time they emigrated to the U.S. where he eventually accepted a position at Princeton. Einstein spent the rest of his life searching unsuccessfully for the key that would unify all the field theories of physics.

Walter Isaacson’s Einstein biography is not light reading. But it is enthralling, detailed, and insightful. Isaacson paints a backdrop illustrating the scientific community at the time of and leading up to Einstein’s breakthroughs in physics. He devotes entire chapters attempting to help the reader understand the principles of Einstein’s theories. But what he does most masterfully is to explore, in detail, just how Einstein’s mind worked, and how the rebellious nature of his personality influenced his genius. For this task he had at his disposal a treasure trove of newly released personal letters of Einstein.

Biographer Walter Isaacson

This biographer deftly paints a picture of a complex man, whose multi-faceted personality led to his ability to think in ways few other scientists have been able to do. Isaacson puts the reader into the moment, providing context and a backdrop for understanding Einstein in relation to the world he lived in and the people he lived among. The details and minutiae of Einstein’s life, supported by 88 pages of sources and notes, make for fascinating reading and transports the reader into a world unlike any before or after this man’s time.

Walter Isaacson is the CEO of the Apsen Institute, former chairman of CNN, and former managing editor of Time magazine.

Other books by Walter Isaacson