Einstein: A Biography

I found this biography easy to read and follow. It tries to present Einstein in an objective light, but is lyrical and thoughtful. Without casting judgement the writer moves you to make your own judgement. I feel only sadness when I hear of Einsteins private life and what happened to his wives and children. In that sense he was as ordinary as the rest of us, and perhaps more tragic. I feel only total exhilaration and excitement when I read how he came about the theory of relativity which surely is the most awesome thought man has ever had? Tough competition from Darwin on Evolution I think and of course Watson and Crick with DNA. He let his religious and philosophical prejudices cloud his scientific judgement sometimes, but relativity opened up cosmology (how was the universe created) which allowed science to move into an area dominated by religion and myths. He would have smiled I think when the Supernova teams under Perlmutter and Schmidt discovered our universe is accelerating its expansion. The writer mixes the chapters so that you follow his life as his ideas develop. As a biography and style of writing throughly recommended.

This is a well written, engaging account of Einstein's life. It differs from most biographies in the sense that it proceeds by examining themes in Einstein's life as opposed to telling his life story in strict chronological order. The main stages and successes and failures of the subject's life are covered in sufficient detail The author is generally successful is describing the essentially mathematical content of Einstein's theories in a way which can be followed by non-mathematicians. After completing the book, while appreciating the genius of Einstein, I was left with a feeling of sadness. Either because of his essential character or because of his single-mindedness, Einstein's personal life was less successful. Neither of his two marriages gave him the happiness that he would have hoped for and he spent the last third of his life in a country he didn't really like.

This is a re-issue of what was originally a 2005 German biography, where it was, apparently, very highly acclaimed. The author offers a meticulous account of Einstein's life, one in which he sets out to explain the man rather than support the myth. We are given a wide-ranging look into Einstein's life and, for me just as important, into the historical context in which he grew up to become surely the most recognisable face on the planet, today. Why should you read this? If this is the first biography of Einstein, then I'd say it is because Einstein sits alongside Galileo and Newton as three individuals who helped us to see the world as it truly is, rather than how the Establishment wanted us to see it. Neffe chooses not to give us a narrative chronology of Einstein's life, but rather to dig down deeply into a wide range of evidence to examine Einstein's thought processes. In this way, he does, it seems to me, help us to understand the man better. Few stones are left unturned, and in this way, the book offers the reader a lot more than just a close and detailed look at Einstein himself. I really enjoyed this aspect of it. The style is sufficiently erudite to be authoritative, yet also completely accessible by a wide readership, covering in depth both the scientist and the man. This book would also surely make a wonderful gift for an older child or grandchild, especially one who perhaps turns their nose up at fiction. It will prove to be a challenging read for them, but will surely grip them as well as give them important historical background that continues to affect us all.

I have read a number of biographies of Einstein over the years. This is, in my view by far the best. I gave me a much more satisfying sense of Einstein's character than any other biography including Issacson's. The process of how he arrived at his results was also well done. This is the one to get.

Brilliant book! Insightful, well-written, engaging and with plenty of scientific detail to keep an amateur happy yet without being overly heavy.

Bought for mum and she is really enjoying it

I have read many books on relativity and quantum theory, and there are some very talented scientists who are able to explain Einstein's discoveries in layman's terms. Neffe and his translator Frisch deserve to be amongst that group. The passages in this that are about the nature of those discoveries are clearer than anything I have read before. Wonderful. For all that this isn't a wonderful book, merely a good one. I am by no means a prude, and appreciate that the more salacious parts of Einstein's biography are what will cause the books to fly off the shelves, but I found the focus on rumours about the scientist's personal life and repetition of scandalous claims from single sources to be a little tiresome. In my view private lives are just that. In addition, the book is badly in need of a good editor - it could and should have been two thirds as long. There is a lot of repetition and overlap between chapters and often two paragraphs will essentially repeat themselves. For all that, the science in here makes it well worth reading.

The term 'genius' is often misused when describing somebody. However, there are exceptions to that misuse and Einstein's work as a physicist is one of those exceptions. In terms of his ability to conceptualise the working of the universe and rationalise it to the level of defined mathematical terms takes a special kind of brain. This then leads to the question: 'what about the person behind the mind?'. Neffe's biography of Einstein seeks to answer that fundamental question and in my view achieves it quite well. This isn't a simple cradle to grave biography but uses evidence of Einstein's way of thinking as to how he managed to solve some of the issues that had been dogging physicists and mathematicians since Newton's time. It also looks at how he interacted with others, not just the other great physicists of the age - Bohr, Schrodinger, Rosen, et al, but other individuals and family as well which shows a different character to the academic portrayed in films. Einstein's own issues with religion are put into context; Einstein was fortunate to get out of Germany before being Jewish became a crime, but he did struggle with what he was doing - essentially deconstructing the universe and the concept of god. A very good biography that sheds light on one of the foremost physicists of the modern age.

Puede ser interesante para quien ya sepa lo esencial sobre el personaje. Aporta nueva información sobre cartas u otros documentos que se han ido conociendo posteriormente a muchas de las otras obras existentes. Más duro de leer que el de W. Isaacson, pero vale la pena.

Interessantes Buch

A rare read. Writing about a very popular but not necessarily well known subject is a real challenge and that challenge is fully met here. The author manages to keep a steady flow of relevant narrative from the first to the last page, going as deep as possible into psychological, scientific and historical facts. Einstein comes fully to life once again. A work not to be missed!

A lively and engaging work! The opening draws one in and knocks your socks off. Loved it. With no scientific knowledge or ability, I was able to follow the explanations of the Relativity Theory and the General Relativity subtleties. But there is so much more in the human story too. Readable, memorable, admirable!

This books is well written, with many pages of formal references if you want to check his sources! Every page drags you to the next one screaming for more, and shows you that Einstein was much more than the science icon that was created around him (and in some cases, much less). This book covers his groundbreaking science, his family relationships and relationships with various women, his political involvement, his difficult relationship with zionism and eventually his fall to shame in the scientific community. I couldn't stop reading it, but I was at times worried i'd never find the end! A long, fantastic and well cited resource on arguably the most important man for civilization today.