Einstein

Everything that has fascinated me about Einstein is here. Above all it's the wonder of his two breakthroughs on relativity. Stephen Hawking set me up nicely to enjoy Walter Isaacson's elegant summaries for the lay person. Relativity is for everyone!

Next, the philosophy and science issue. Isaacson doesn't pass definitive judgement, but he lays it out. Einstein's rejection of aspects of quantum theory was a flaw. It seemed to stem from his belief in "Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists". That's OK, but when confronted with the evidence supporting quantum theory, Einstein's strict adherence to this pantheist position became like a dogma. It takes a strong, clear argument to make a convincing critique of Albert fucking Einstein, but Isaacson does it.

I only take off half a star because early on Isaacson declares that Einstein "believed in god". You can't say it so baldly, it's not that simple and it's unseemly when believers and atheists alike try to claim Einstein for their own. There's always an asterisk. Later in the book Isaacson does lay out the nuance in Einstein's position on god. I think Richard Dawkins did a better job, when he referred to pantheism as "sexed up atheism", while claiming Einstein for our team.

My admiration for Einstein grows when I read about his flexibility in other areas. He was a pacifist after the First World War, but he changed his position when the horror of Nazism became clear to him. Hitler forced that change. It was no longer a choice, the Nazis had to be stopped. This in turn led to him supporting the US nuclear weapons program, to counter the possibility of Hitler getting there first. When nuclear proliferation grew into the nightmare of mutually assured destruction, Einstein joined those warning about the suicidal threat nuclear weapons pose to human civilization.

It is not a given that moral clarity will follow scientific brilliance. Einstein was not perfect, but this biography shows he shone brilliantly in both magisteria.

I finished reading one of the best biographies I've read in the recent past. Walter Isaacson has done a wonderful job composing this biography. This book changed my view about Einstein completely. He he is something much more than a brilliant physicist. Einstein is a man with a good sense of humor, never got tired of making romance till his last breath and a humanist by heart. Just like a good scientist would do, he changed his opinion about war and conflicts based on the circumstances and always pushed for the betterment of the human race.
The first sentence of the speech he was drafting in his deathbed to be delivered later if he lived to do it indicates his unshaken spirit which took him for a 76 year long journey.
"I speak to you today not as an American citizen and not as a Jew, but as a human being ..."

This is an incredibly well researched, detailed account of all aspects of Einstein's life, personal, scientific and political that I can highly recommend to anybody interested. I learned heaps I didn't know and had the record set straight on a number of points, mainly regarding Einstein's political views, how they changed over time and his level of support for setting up the Manhattan Project.

I read the book with a specific research agenda, which was to independently form an opinion as to whether Einstein was autistic, an idea not first suggested by me and not on the author's mind either. Conclusion: Yep, autisticker than an autistic person with autism.

Towards the end there is an account of how Einstein was affected by and responded to McCarthyism. He was opposed, seeing in it the oppression of free speech and free thought characteristic of both Fascism and Communism. The author takes the view that McCarthyism was a passing fad, doomed to fail in the long term because of the greatness of the American Constitution. I found this level of complacency offensive to all the victims of McCarthy, all the people who spoke up in defense of freedoms and all the people who defended the constitution legally.

On it's own the constitution is nothing; without those people willing to risk reputation, career, even liberty, would McCarthyism have been a "passing fad"? Given the current political situation, we need such people more than ever. You disappoint me in this, Isaacson. Einstein, who used his world famous name to stand up for moderation, tolerance and freedom of thought and speech, does not.

Still, overall an excellent book.