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.

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

This book has all the history, all the details, all the math, all the wild hair, and all the fun. This was the only book I had read on the man, and I think it will be the last, since I can't imagine anything better. Well written, moves fast, you feel like you really learned a thing or two or three. Even the theories are explored in terms you can visualize (key method Einstein used was to visualize ideas in his head...) and while we won't get it all, we get enough to realize how gifted the man was. A pretty good person too, though human like us all and took a few missteps here and there, which brings him closer to us as a human rather than this Sheldon genius.

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 is an excellent biography of Albert Einstein, whom Neffe considers "...one of the greatest men in the history of the world...." In addition to special and general relativity (including how these ideas developed in his mind), there is very good coverage of Einstein's contributions to quantum physics, including the photoelectric effect, the duality of light, Bose-Einstein statistics and condensates, stimulated emission, and the EPR paradox. Neffe explains how Einstein's work in relativity and quantum physics is influencing research in physics today. There is the interesting story of how East Germany (GDR) honored Einstein by renovating his vacation home in Caputh and of the woman--a former art teacher--who was hired by the GDR in 1979 to be its caretaker and who continued in that role after German reunification. The biography also covers Einstein's private life as well as problems caused by anti-Semitism both in Germany and in the U.S., where his humanitarian concerns in the latter also caused difficulties. This comprehensive biography should by read by anyone with an interest in Einstein, science, or human civilization.