Einstein: His Life and Universe » (Large Print Edition)

Journalist and historian Walter Isaacson is best known in literary circles as the writer of magisterial biographies, scholarly and meticulously researched, yet immensely entertaining.

A century after Albert Einstein began postulating his "Big Idea" about time, space, and gravity, a new biography examines the scientist whose public idolization was surpassed only by his legitimacy as one of humanity's greatest thinkers. Walter Isaacson, the author of excellent profiles of Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger, utilizes a trove of material from recently opened Einstein archives to offer a probing look at a provocatively freethinking individual.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

With the help of many witty, candid letters, Mr. Isaacson offers a wonderfully rounded portrait of the ever-surprising Einstein personality. Equally important is the Einstein myth, and the material on this subject is even more entertaining. Einstein horrified his colleagues by enjoying his vast celebrity. ( Einstein s personality, for no clear reasons, triggers outbursts of a kind of mass hysteria, the German consul reported to Berlin as the great man made one of his rock-star visits to New York.) He also stymied the press in its efforts to keep up with his accomplishments. Mr. Isaacson has great fun with the reportorial frenzy that surrounded each new pearl of Einsteinian wisdom … an illuminating delight.

Acknowledgments     xv
Main Characters     xix
The Light-Beam Rider     1
Childhood, 1879-1896     8
The Zurich Polytechnic, 1896-1900     32
The Lovers, 1900-1904     50
The Miracle Year: Quanta and Molecules, 1905     90
Special Relativity, 1905     107
The Happiest Thought, 1906-1909     140
The Wandering Professor, 1909-1914     158
General Relativity, 1911-1915     189
Divorce, 1916-1919     225
Einstein's Universe, 1916-1919     249
Fame, 1919     263
The Wandering Zionist, 1920-1921     281
Nobel Laureate, 1921-1927     309
Unified Field Theories, 1923-1931     336
Turning Fifty, 1929-1931     357
Einstein's God     384
The Refugee, 1932-1933     394
America, 1933-1939     425
Quantum Entanglement, 1935     448
The Bomb, 1939-1945     471
One-Worlder, 1945-1948     487
Landmark, 1948-1953     508
Red Scare, 1951-1954     524
The End, 1955     535
Epilogue: Einstein's Brain and Einstein's Mind     544
Sources     553
Notes     565
Index     643