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| Author: Walter Isaacson
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $32.00
Buy Used: $2.57
You Save: $29.43 (92%)
New (67) Used (109) Collectible (17) from $2.57
Avg. Customer Rating:  213 reviews
Sales Rank: 5845
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 704
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 2
ISBN: 0743264738
Dewey Decimal Number: 530.092
EAN: 9780743264730
ASIN: 0743264738
Publication Date: April 10, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: few bent corners Used - Good Default Text
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| Customer Reviews:
 Inside the man May 4, 2008
Isaacson appears to have truly stepped inside the head of this great man. His explanations of the science are understandable to those who are not professional physicists, but more importantly, we get to see the man behind the famous equations. What was he really like? How was this super-star also a human being? What were his imperfections?
Isaacson has done a fantastic job with this book - it is very readable and difficult to put down as a result.
The Best .... April 27, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have read Biographys about Einstein before but this was by far the Best ,the Author has such a natural way to describe the inner workings of a Complexed Genius.
Universe Man April 24, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Walter Isaacson's biography of Time's "Person of the 20th Century", Albert Einstein, welcomes us to the world of one of history's most famous scientists. So well known that his name is nearly a common noun synonym for genius, but still misunderstood on many fronts, Einstein emerges much more intact than most famous people subjected to a biography of this length. He wasn't a great father for most of his life, perhaps shockingly so in one case. At one time a revolutionary figure in his field, he became quite conservative in his views late in his career, with his major contribution coming tangentially as others answered his objections to more modern theories of uncertainty and reality. Often thought of as the father of the atomic bomb, Einstein played a very minor role, other than to recognize the awesome potential of E = mc2 and making the effort to communicate his concern to those who needed to know in the volatile days leading up to World War II. The story of the emigration of Einstein and other German scientists is chilling in its implication. Had they stayed and developed the bomb for Hitler, the world might be a much different place today.
A book about a theoretical physicist has a good chance to sail right over the general reader's technical ability to understand it. Isaacson does a good job of keeping that part of the story near the ground, presenting concepts and Einstein's famous "thought experiments", but essentially no higher mathematics. I did better with E = mc2 and issues of uncertainty and reality presented later in the book than with the theory of relativity. Isaacson does his best work examining Einstein's conceptual mind--his career-long search for a unified field theory that would explain all the major forces in the universe, and his long dedication to a unified form of world government that would mediate the risks inherent with nationalism and mechanized, even nuclear, weapons. The stories about Einstein's family life, while humanizing and revealing, were the least interesting to me, though they did convey Einstein's basic humility with his place in the cosmos.
It took me quite awhile to read this book, but I'll give it five stars, particularly for biography readers and those with a scientific bent.
 Just What The Doctor Ordered April 18, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I picked this book up in its audio form as something to listen to when I was on the road. Turns out that I unwittingly purchased the "abridged" edition and, in retrospect, I'm glad I did. I wasn't looking for an incredibly in-depth look at the brilliant theoretical physicist, nor certainly at his groundbreaking work. As it turns out, I got just about all that I could handle (and was not too overwhelmed) in the abridged version.
This work can be divided into two clear avenues; one dealing with the history and details of Einstein's personal life, the other attempting to present and explain his work. The two are intertwined in a very efficient and well presented manner.
I am of above average intelligence, though not scientific by nature. While I was able to roughly follow parts of the narrator's descriptions of relativity and quantum mechanics, at other times I was completely lost. Luckily, the deep stuff was "relatively" confined and not so drawn out as to lose continuity.
One of Einstein's greatest strengths was his ability to explain his incredibly complex theories in ways more understandable to laymen, using examples involving trains, lightning bolts, falling elevators, etc. It was through these "thought experiments" and not through complex labratory work that most of his theories were developed.
As with most great men, Einstein was not without his faults, and the author willingly points them out. In doing so, Einstein comes across not as a bad person, but more as a typically flawed human being. He was certainly an amazing person and one of the most scientifically gifted theoreticians in history.
While I cannot attest to the readability of the unabridged text (and suspect that the science could be overwhelming), the abridged audio version, which consists of six CDs encompassing seven hours of narration, can be highly recommended.
Einstein, the Greatest Scientist of the century April 15, 2008
More than any book on Einstein, this delves into his human side. This fascinating man was a complex matrix of human success and failure, and perhaps near super human characteristics.
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