I enjoy the biographies written by Isaacson, and this volume is also quite good. In particular, I appreciate Isaacson's making general relativity approachable to the layman without the use of tensor algebra. While the work is strong, I think the content could have been slightly better. For example, Goedel's discovering a rotating universe solution to the equations would have been a fun anecdote to include. I also think the text provides too much attention to Einstein's having various affairs and social faux-pas. However, both of these criticisms are minor nits. I personally helped a researcher for The Einstein Papers project at the ETH, so the researcher's mention in the book was personal. The portrayal due to the focus on Einstein's politics, activism, and celebrity is well-done, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book.
This biography tracks Einstein's journey from his youth, through his early days as a patent clerk in Bern to his status as a world-renowned scientist. Isaacson explores the 1905 miracle year, during which the young Einstein published four groundbreaking papers on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and mass-energy equivalence. The narrative follows Einstein's navigation through the challenges of proving General Relativity during a solar eclipse and his eventual relocation to Princeton. The book emphasizes Einstein's search for a unified field theory and his lifelong commitment to pacifism and civil rights.
5/5 Stars.
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