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Science » Lives of Scientists » Albert Einstein

The best books on albert einstein, recommended by andrew robinson.

Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity by Andrew Robinson

Andrew Robinson , author of a biography of Albert Einstein, picks and talks through the five best Albert Einstein books and discusses the life and times of the 'unique genius.'

Interview by Jo Marchant

Albert Einstein: A Biography by Albrecht Folsing

Einstein 1905: The Standard of Greatness by John S. Rigden

The Born-Einstein Letters,1916-1955 by Albert Einstein and Max Born

The Einstein File by Fred Jerome

Einstein on Politics by David Rowe and Robert Schulmann

1 Albert Einstein: A Biography by Albrecht Folsing

2 einstein 1905: the standard of greatness by john s. rigden, 3 the born-einstein letters,1916-1955 by albert einstein and max born, 4 the einstein file by fred jerome, 5 einstein on politics by david rowe and robert schulmann.

B efore we start talking generally about Albert Einstein books , can you give us a brief outline of the significance of Einstein and his work? You’re the author of a biography of Albert Einstein called Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity that was republished this year to coincide with the centenary of the theory of general relativity. 

There must be literally hundreds of Albert Einstein books. Was it daunting for you to tackle someone of so much significance and interest?

And out of those 1700 Albert Einstein books, we’ve asked you to pick just five! Your first choice is Albert Einstein: A Biography by Albrecht Fölsing published in 1997. What makes this biography so good?

It’s comprehensive, for a start. It is a very big book — one of the biggest on Einstein’s life. Fölsing is a physicist by training so he is able to bring clear explanations of the physics into the life. He’s extremely good at quoting Einstein’s writings and comments in an illuminating way. What makes the book unique is that the author is German, when most biographers come from the English-speaking world. He is able to present Einstein’s ambivalence towards Germany both in physics and in politics and bring that to life in quite a subtle way. To have a German writing on Einstein is particularly interesting.

Just to illuminate that, could you briefly sketch the arc of Einstein’s life for us?

He was born in Germany in 1879 and grew up there until he was 16 when he went to join his parents in Italy. He was unhappy with the German educational system: He was not a very willing student in an authoritarian education system. In fact, his whole life was a battle against authority in different forms. Later in life he said—and it’s one of my favourite quotes from him —“To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate has made me an authority myself.” Finally, he was educated in Switzerland and that’s where he really belongs. He kept Swiss nationality throughout his life, until he went to the United States and became an American citizen when he was quite old, in 1940. So, he is not German by nationality, though he was born there.

“He was not very successful in his relationships with his university lecturers.”

The Swiss atmosphere was very productive for his physics, which started in about 1905 with special relativity and some other key work. He stayed in Germany until 1933, when the Nazis came to power, and he had to get out. He spent a little time in Europe, including in Britain in the early 1930s. Finally, he left Europe forever—never to return—in 1933. He lived in Princeton, New Jersey, at the Institute for Advanced Study, a sort of ivory tower. That suited him very well. He could just think and didn’t have to do any teaching. He lived in Princeton right up to his death in 1955. In that period he wasn’t so successful as a physicist — but became much more involved in political causes like the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb, pacifism, and Zionism. As a Jew, he was very interested in the founding of Israel and took an active role in that.

One of the most intriguing things about his life story is the fact that when he did his first really significant revolutionary work in physics, he wasn’t working as a physicist was he? He was working in a patent office and didn’t really have contact with other top physicists at the time.

That’s right. That’s always going to be one of the most intriguing aspects of Einstein and his life. He was a patent clerk in Bern and worked in the patent office for a number of years from 1902. After 1909/1910, he finally takes a position as a professional, academic physicist and moves to various institutions around Europe. Probably his most productive years are those years when he was a patent clerk. Having said that, he came up with general relativity when he was a professor of physics in Berlin. Also, at the patent office, although he was not known in the academic world, he had some contact with academic physicists like Max Planck who was a key supporter of relativity. But we should remember that he was always involved with those two worlds.

Are there any clues as to where his revelations came from? Did his unconventional background play a part in that?

Yes. It’s difficult to pin that down but from an early age—from his teens onwards—he was a great believer in self-education. Like many geniuses, he was not particularly successful in his university training. He attended a famous institution—in Zurich—but was always rebelling against his academic education, constantly reading the latest research on his own. He was not working with other people at all. He was not very successful in his relationships with his university lecturers. He was a rebel and, because he was so passionate about physics, his best ideas really came from his own reading and thinking. From his earliest days as a teenager he was a believer in what he called ‘thought experiments.’ He wasn’t involved with laboratories at all, these experiments were all in his head. One of the most famous ones concerns chasing a light ray. When he was 16 or 17, he imagined whether you could catch up with a light ray and what that would mean.

Did that help him to see things that other physicists didn’t, because he was free to think in his own way?

Let’s dig a little bit more into the science with your next choice which is Einstein 1905: The Standard of Greatness by John Rigden from 2005. This Albert Einstein book is about the so-called ‘miraculous’ year. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Einstein published five papers that year. All of them are considered of great value. The paper that Einstein regarded as the most revolutionary of his work in 1905 was actually about quantum theory. There was another paper about Brownian motion. He showed that the phenomenon of Brownian motion—which had been known for almost 100 years—was actually due to atoms bombarding particles. This was considered proof of the atomic theory of matter by his fellow physicists — the first time that atoms had really been proved to exist. Then, the last of the five papers concerned probably the most famous equation in science: E=mc2. This came out of his first paper on relativity and was published at the end of 1905. As everyone knows, E=mc2 is the basis for what happens with nuclear energy and the atomic bomb later in the century.

This is the principle that energy and mass are two aspects of the same thing. So, if you split apart mass, you’re going to release huge amounts of energy which is what drives nuclear energy and the atomic bomb.

Yes, and c is the speed of light. So, with E=mc2, you can immediately see that the amount of energy is enormous from a small amount of matter because c is such a large number. So, E=mc2 implies a very large amount of energy from a small amount of matter through the process of atomic fission and fusion which Einstein didn’t know about in 1905. Fission was not discovered until later — just before the Second World War , in fact.

Let’s talk about the theory of special relativity, then, which was one of the papers in this miraculous year. Can you talk us through that theory?

It’s a response to Newton’s idea of absolute time and absolute space which Einstein rejected after thinking about it deeply. John Rigden puts it quite well in his book. He says, “A world with absolute space existing apart from absolute time would turn into a world where space and time are joined”. This theory of relativity led to the concept of space-time which is a key thought in general relativity. It’s not easy to explain relativity in a few words, but it rejects absolute time and space, leading to the idea that all motion had to be defined relative to a coordinate system — and that different coordinate systems had to be compared. General relativity was much more comprehensive, it included gravitation and acceleration. In fact, Einstein’s great idea about general relativity was that gravitation and acceleration were equivalent and that we must build our idea of the universe on that thought, rather than regarding them as independent, as Newton did.

General relativity is what we often see illustrated with a rubber sheet with marbles on it distorting the sheet. Is that right?

Yes, the curvature of the rubber sheet is a way of expressing—not literally, it’s a symbol—the curvature of space-time. The experimental proof of general relativity came only later. Probably the most famous aspect of the experimental proof is the bending of a light-ray by the gravitational field of the sun. The light emitted by distant stars was observed to be bent by the gravitational field of the sun in 1919 during an astronomical expedition led by Sir Arthur Eddington, a British astronomer. After that expedition, physicists started to take general relativity much more seriously. There were other experimental proofs as well, but that was the beginning of the idea that general relativity was correct. Before that, it was unproven and Einstein asked astronomers to go looking for it. That’s what happened in 1919. Astronomers were able to back up his theory with observations.

So, after we had the proof of general relativity, how was science different? How did the universe look different? What are the implications of that for the way we see the world now?

The whole idea of the Big Bang has been explained, to a great extent, in terms of general relativity. This came much later than Einstein of course — he was dead by then. General relativity also explains the existence of black holes. Einstein didn’t think they existed, but, since the 1960s, experimental proofs have been found that they do. The whole structure of space and time which Newton imagined, an absolute coordinate system, has been abandoned in favour of a curved space-time formulation. That’s really the result of Einstein’s work.

Going back to the miraculous year of 1905, which is the focus of Rigden’s book. His achievements in so many papers in such a short period of time seems almost superhuman. But he was just human, right? Do we risk exaggerating his genius sometimes?

He was certainly very human and had many failings as well as an extraordinary scientific imagination. Scholars have looked closely at what Einstein was doing in the years up to 1905, there’s not enough evidence to be sure. There were a few letters to his wife, and he published a little bit. There is this feeling that it came out of the blue. It obviously didn’t. No genius works from a sudden eureka moment and it’s not like that, even with Einstein. The problem is that we don’t really know exactly what he was reading and how his thought process worked. What we do know is what he published in 1905 and that he was fascinated by contradictions in physics. He imagined chasing a light-ray in his mind and asked what a light-ray would look like if you caught up with it and came to the conclusion that it’s an impossible physical situation. That, according to Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetism, there was no such thing as catching a light-ray. From that, he concluded that light always moves at a constant speed — independent of the coordinate system you were using to measure it with. It didn’t matter how fast an observer moved, light would always move at a constant speed faster than the observer.

“Einstein’s great idea about general relativity was that gravitation and acceleration were equivalent and that we must build our idea of the universe on that thought.”

Another contradiction that fascinated him was to do with magnetism and electric charge. He imagined that if you had a stationary charge observed by a stationary observer, there would be no magnetic field which could be observed with a compass. But, if you kept the stationary charge and then the observer started to move, by Maxwell’s definition of electromagnetism, he/she would observe a magnetic field with a compass. So which was true? Was there a magnetic field or wasn’t there? He said that’s a contradiction, we have to resolve it. And he did resolve it, with his theory of relativity.

There’s often a temptation to move away from contradiction but it sounds like he just confronted it head-on.

Let’s talk about your next choice of Albert Einstein books which is the Born-Einstein Letters, 1916-1955 , which was republished in 2005. This is a collection of correspondence between Einstein and his friend, the German physicist, Max Born. What do they talk about in the letters?

It was a long friendship. It began with physics but developed into a relationship with many other overtones to do with politics, ethics, and the state of Germany during those years. Both of them won Nobel Prizes, so when we read them we’re exposed to a couple of very intelligent people writing about science. Throughout the letters, you get these human asides: It’s a very unique mixture of science and humanities. They disagreed frequently and they disagreed most famously about quantum theory. In one letter from Einstein to Born he says, ‘The old one does not play dice. I can’t accept the possibility of chance ruling the universe.’ And Born never agreed with that. Right to the end of the correspondence, they’re arguing about the role of probability in physics.

They’re also talking about the First World War and how they react to that and about Jewishness. They’re both Jewish but they have different attitudes to Jewishness. And they’re talking about the Nazi period, of course. During that time, Born escaped from Germany and went to Edinburgh and became a professor. Einstein had gone to the United States — so they didn’t meet. After 1933, they corresponded but they didn’t have any personal contact — which is good, as it means that their ideas are on paper rather than just spoken to each other. We learn a lot. Born edits the letters and has a lot of commentary where he responds after Einstein’s death. Einstein’s step-daughter wrote to him about his last few days in hospital and she said, ‘He left this world without sentimentality or regret.’ Born says, ‘we lost our dearest friend when he died.’ But ‘without sentimentality or regret’ is the keynote of the letters. Einstein can be quite inhuman. He doesn’t have normal human reactions to some things including, for instance, the death of his second wife. His family life was not particularly happy. He divorced his first wife and had a rather difficult relationship with his children. This comes into the book quite a lot because Born is a warmer personality than Einstein. The contrast is interesting.

You say he didn’t have normal human reactions to things. What kind of personality does come across then?

Let’s move on to your next choice of Albert Einstein book: The Einstein File by Fred Jerome, published in 2002. This is a book on an investigation of how the FBI, led by J. Edgar Hoover, spied on Einstein for 23 years. What happened exactly?

It started in the 1930s when Einstein moved to the United States. He had extremely mixed feelings about Russia and about communism . He had some sympathies for socialism but he wasn’t a communist. But the FBI and many right-wing Americans thought that he was. So, even after he became an American citizen in 1940, he was regarded with suspicion by them. He wrote a letter to President Roosevelt in 1939 advocating the building of an atomic bomb, along with some other physicists, which was taken seriously by the American government and Roosevelt. Eventually, the Manhattan Project got going, partly out of Einstein’s interest in the subject. Obviously other factors were involved as well, Einstein was not the only influence, but he was quite important. But even though he was involved in supporting this project, he was not allowed to have access to any secret documents. The army, who ran the Manhattan Project, did not give him security clearance. But it seems the FBI didn’t know that and when they started compiling their file in the 1940s, they assumed that Einstein could be a spy with access to secret information about the atomic bomb project and they acted accordingly.

“Long before many people had realised what a risk to world peace Nazi Germany posed, Einstein recognised it.”

J. Edgar Hoover was convinced he was a security risk and might be leaking information to the Russians. When the Klaus Fuchs spy case happened—around 1950—Hoover became even more convinced that Einstein was a risk. But what finally tipped the balance for Hoover was that Einstein gave a broadcast on television in 1950 where he openly told the whole of the United States that the hydrogen bomb, which President Truman had just announced as a project, could cause a poisoning of the atmosphere and would be a total disaster, that it shouldn’t be followed up. Hoover then became passionately convinced that Einstein’s every move should be tracked and that all political associations that he had should be put into this file. He was hoping to prove that Einstein was a communist and that he might be deported from the United States. That was a serious project of the FBI and the immigration service for five years between 1950 and his death in 1955.

And this didn’t come out until reasonably recently then, with freedom of information requests?

It didn’t come out until the 1990s. It’s quite disturbing, really, to think the FBI could have kept the secret for so long. In fact, some FBI agents—even though they were in the employment of the agency—were not aware about this secret file. Hoover knew that if it got out it would cause tremendous embarrassment to the United States government — this world famous scientist being pursued as a potential spy. He managed to keep the secret but how it was kept in the decades after the 1950s and 1960s is extraordinary and quite alarming, I think.

Was this campaign a complete failure? Or is there evidence that it was able to damage Einstein’s reputation or legacy in any way?

Ironically, I think it probably persuaded Einstein—because he was aware he was under surveillance, he didn’t know the details but he knew he was being watched—to come out and make a very public statement in the press in 1953 in support of intellectuals who were standing up against Joseph McCarthy’s campaign. McCarthy reacted very strongly to this and said Einstein was an ‘enemy of America.’ He later changed that to ‘a disloyal American,’ but he never went back on that statement. Einstein thought he might have to go to jail because he was recommending to people that they should not testify to congressional committees about their political views. He said that courage was needed by American intellectuals otherwise they would become slaves. That is what he felt the American government was trying to do during the Red Scare of the 1950s.

It was a very courageous thing to come out and say in that climate.

It was. It is quite moving to read his own private views and worries but he was quite old by then. He was prepared to stand up because he felt the situation had become so like Nazi Germany in the 1930s. He really felt that having lived through the rise of Nazi Germany, he had a duty to warn Americans that the same thing might happen with McCarthyism. I think you can say he was a real factor in the fall of McCarthy. Only one factor, but he was important. After the fall of McCarthy, Hoover realized there was no point in pursuing Einstein anymore. The whole file was wound down by the FBI just before Einstein’s death — but it does run to 1800 pages. One irony is that much of the file consists of associations to which Einstein had lent his name but very little of it consists of his views.

Let’s move on to Einstein’s political writings, that Hoover failed to read, in Einstein on Politics edited by David Rowe and Robert Schulmann from 2007. What picture do we get from this Albert Einstein book, then, of his political views?

This is the first book which really collects everything together which is why it’s valuable. There were a couple of books before that but this is the first collection in which everything is there that matters: letters, public statements, all of course in English (many of them were originally in German.) The general attitude has always been that Einstein was politically naïve. I don’t think that’s true. When you see what he did and what he stood for, you can’t call him naïve. He was a committed pacifist until 1933 and made a number of provocative speeches about pacifism. After he recognised what the Nazis stood for, he immediately changed his mind and said that there was no possibility of resisting Nazism without military force. He was prescient. Long before many people had realised what a risk to world peace Nazi Germany posed, Einstein recognised it and argued that the countries of the West would have to arm themselves and fight, eventually.

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He was not naïve about Israel . He supported the founding of Israel but persistently said to Israelis that they would have to find an ethical solution to their relationship with the Arabs. Otherwise, the whole state would fail and they had a duty to do so. He never changed his mind and when he was invited to be President of Israel in 1952—not long before his death—he refused saying ‘I have no talent for politics and I would have to say things to my fellow Jews in Israel that they would probably not want to hear about their relationship with the Arabs.’ Again, he was probably right. Whether he could have influenced events more than he did by becoming president, we’ll never know. But he was certainly regarded seriously by the Israelis as a thinker and as an activist. Then, on the matter on world-government, in 1945, it made sense. The United Nations had just started but they were already quarrelling in the Security Council. Einstein said the only way of controlling nationalism was by having a central, military authority. He tried to get both America and the Soviet Union and the British and some other nations involved in that, on the model of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which he had grown up under. He gave a speech at a Nobel Prize winning anniversary dinner in New York, saying, ‘The war is won but the peace is not.’ There was about two or three years of campaigning for world government with other physicists and thinkers. Of course it failed — but that was, I suppose, inevitable in the Cold War.

Is this book just of historical interest, to know what he thought, or do Einstein’s thoughts resonate for us today?

When you read his collected writings, you can’t help but see that there was a connection between his personal integrity and his political views which we all struggle with: how we behave as individuals and how we behave as a collective. His honesty and his courage do make me think. And he wrote well. He had a pungent style, his writing is not woolly, and he had a sense of history too. He also had a wonderful sense of humour. That comes through in virtually everything he writes about politics and human behaviour. Sometimes he was pretty caustic but he was often just gently ironic. I’m sure you’ve seen a photograph at the end of his life of him sticking his tongue out at the photographers. I think impudence and defiance of authority are the defining features of his political statements. I find that, on the whole, admirable.

That is something that seems to run through his scientific thinking and his political views.

He was a rebel, against orthodoxy of all kinds. We haven’t touched on his last 30 years as a physicist which are a bit notorious. He was trying to unify electromagnetism and gravitation — in other words, to extend general relativity to an even more universal understanding of the universe. He didn’t succeed, but in my book I’ve got a piece contributed by Steven Weinberg, the particle physicist, who says that even though Einstein failed we have to admire his determination to carry on and not accept quantum theory as the final theory. He said, ‘I can’t accept that as the final theory of physics, there must be something beyond it.’ He again showed his defiance of orthodoxy because almost every physicist thought he had lost his way. And some of them said so — Bohr, in particular. Niels Bohr came to Princeton in 1939 and Einstein had plenty of opportunity to meet him and talk to his old friend. But he didn’t want to because they disagreed so radically about physics. They spent quite a lot of time ignoring each other. Bohr was very upset about it but Einstein was determined not to reopen this old debate so kept his distance.

How should we remember Einstein?

As a unique genius. I’ve written two books on genius and I can’t think of anybody else who managed to combine science and decent human behaviour in the way that he did. And also as a humorous man. I really admire his jokes…

November 20, 2015

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Andrew Robinson

Andrew Robinson is a London-based writer and author of some twenty-five books on science; history of science; archaeology and scripts; and Indian history and culture. His recent books include a biography of Jean-François Champollion, Cracking the Egyptian Code and India: A Short History . He is author of Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity , republished in 2015 to celebrate the centenary of Einstein’s general theory of relativity and described by astronomer Patrick Moore as “by far the best book about Einstein that I have ever come across”.

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20 Best Books on Albert Einstein (2022 Review)

September 16, 2020 by James Wilson

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Albert Einstein was an intelligent man who discovered groundbreaking theories. He was a german who changed the world of physics. He created the theory of relativity. He’s done so much for physicists and the world. His death was nearly a centennial, yet he’s still one of the most notable, if not the most notable, physicist to this day. He has done amazing work, but people just see him as the crazy smart physicist with wacky hair. Where did he grow up? What was his life like? What did he do to achieve his success?

What are the Best Albert Einstein Books to read?

These are some questions that the following 20 books can answer. This book discusses Einstein’s incredible achievements, but they also discuss the rest of his history. He was more than just a physicist. He did a lot of great work. These books will delve into just what he did, and the impact he has made.

Best Books on Albert Einstein: Our Top 20 Picks

Here are some of the best Albert Einstein books that you can consider to expand your knowledge on the subject:

1. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer is not really about Einstein at all. This book is actually about memory techniques, and applying them to everyday life. The book draws inspiration from Foer who used this research to help his own memory. He does plenty of research in this book that helps back his claims.

The book is mostly about memory athletics. This is a very engaging book. It keeps readers drawn in and entertained. The book mixes the tips on memory techniques with stories about them. This book has a lot of incredible information, but it only includes a few techniques. It is more about the experience than it is about the advice.

• Authors : Joshua Foer (Author)
• Publisher : Penguin Books; Reprint Edition (February 28, 2012)
• Pages : 307 pages

2. Einstein: His Life and Universe

Albert Einstein was a noble man who did a lot of work. He was underappreciated during this time. After his death, the importance of his work was realized. He is one of the world’s greatest physicists. Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson discusses the life of Einstein and all of his achievements.

This book was based on personal letters that Albert Einstein wrote himself. Albert Einstein was not a “go with the flow” kind of guy. He questioned everything. He also sought the truth. This book is all about the way Einstein thought. It also discusses his personal life. He was a struggling father, the creator of the cosmos, and a true genius. This book is a great history of Albert Einstein that includes his own point of view.

• Authors : Walter Isaacson (Author)
• Publisher : Simon & Schuster; 1st Edition (April 10, 2007)
• Pages : 675 pages

3. Relativity: The Special and General Theory

The theory of relativity is arguably Albert Einstein’s greatest achievement. He did a lot of research, and spent countless hours discovering new information on physics. Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein is about Einstein’s process in discovering the theory of relativity. The good gives the basis for the many theories of relativity that Einstein worked with.

This book wasn’t really about Einstein’s life. It’s more about the science he pursued and the work he did. He explains it very well, but non-physicists may have a hard time grasping what Einstein is saying. This is a complicated read, but it’s very informative and has a lot of great knowledge. This is a wonderful read for those who appreciate Einstein and want to know more about his research.

• Authors : Albert Einstein (Author)
• Publisher : Dover Publications; Illustrated Edition (October 18, 2010)
• Pages : 192 pages

4. Einstein’s Dreams

Albert Einstein was an incredible man with deep, thoughtful ideas. Einstein’s Dream by Alan Lightman is a fictional collage of stories that Einstein dreamed up. This work puts a different light on Einstein and the work he did. It takes his importance to a new level. LIghtman was clever to think up this book. It’s interesting, intriguing, and fun. It’s a fairly quick read. It feels like no time goes by when reading this book.

This book is fiction, but it is based on Einstein and research that has been done on him. Historical fiction is great because it’s interesting, yet still educational and informed. This book will help readers have exciting, stimulating, and beautiful dreams. This book is thought-provoking, yet informative. Anyone who loves Albert Einstein will love this book.

• Authors : Alan Lightman (Author)
• Publisher : Vintage; Illustrated Edition (November 9, 2004)
• Pages : 144 pages

5. Who Was Albert Einstein?

Albert Einstein was a great man who did great work. Who Was Albert Einstein? By Jess Bralier is the perfect book for kids wanting to learn about Einstein and his work. The book is an easy read for kids, and does a great job of explaining who Einstein was. The book is funny and engaging. Kids will laugh and smile as they read about Einstein’s life.

This book is particularly perfect for essay assignments on Einstein. Kids will get to know every aspect of his life in an easy to read way. This is good read for young kids, too. Kids as young as seven can read this book and understand what it is saying. This is a wonderful chapter book that is fun, enlightening, and wonderful for kids of all ages. Einstein would be happy to know kids take an interest in him with this book.

• Authors : Jess Brallier (Author), Who HQ (Author), Robert Andrew Parker (Illustrator)
• Publisher : Penguin Workshop; Illustrated Edition (February 18, 2002)
• Pages : 112 pages

6. The World As I See It

Albert Einstein was known best as a physicist, but he was also a writer. The World As I See It by Albert Einstein is a book full of Einstein’s writings. He was a thoughtful man who was both charming and witty. He was perceptive and cared about the world.

This book is great, but it is edited down from Einstein’s original work. It picks and chooses what is shared, so it doesn’t include the full story. Where there are problems, there are also benefits. Because this book is editing down, it is a quick and simple read. It is interesting and contains easy language. The content of the book is great, but there are many grammatical errors that clutter the story and make it incomprehensible at times.

• Publisher : CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (January 2, 2014)
• Pages : 108 pages

7. I Am Albert Einstein

I Am Albert Einstein by Brad Meltzer is a great kids book about Einstein. The book has lots of great illustrations that accompany the biography. The book discusses Einstein’s childhood, a part of his life that kids can relate to. This book is a quick and easy read. Kids of all ages can enjoy this book, but it’s particularly great for kids aged five- eight. This book is non-fiction, but it reads like fiction. This is a great bedtime story for children that is also highly educational.

This book is part of a series on many other historical figures who did great things. The series does a great job of introducing kids to the people who shaped history, and explaining just what they did. This is a very fun read. It has great pictures and great information.

• Authors : Brad Meltzer (Author), Christopher Eliopoulos (Illustrator)
• Publisher : Dial Books (September 16, 2014)
• Pages : 40 pages

8. Ideas and Opinions

Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein is a book full of Einstein’s essays. This book includes essays for all parts of his life. The essays are full of all kinds of topics with all kinds of opinions.  Einstein discusses relativity, war and peace, human rights, government, religion, science, and economics. These are some of Einstein’s most popular essays gathered in one place. Einstein has a lot of great perspectives.

This book goes to show how brilliant of a mind Einstein was. Einstein even goes on to explain the meaning of life, or what he considers the meaning of life. Einsteins was a brilliant physicist, but he was also a humanist with a large heart, and many thoughtful opinions. Anyone interested in learning about Einstein should read his essays first. They truly grasp his personality and who he was as a person.

• Publisher : Broadway Books; 3rd ed. Edition (June 6, 1995)
• Pages : 384 pages

9. Learn Like Einstein

Albert Einstein had one of the greatest minds in the world. Many others wish for that same mind. Learn Like Einstein by Peter Hollins is a book that does, in fact, helps readers learn like Einstein. This book focuses on tips for learning, studying, and memorizing information. Of course, it doesn’t actually give readers Einstein’s brain, but it bases studying habits on how he learned. This book can help readers increase their reading speed, improve focus and concentration, practice memory techniques created by experts, and cram information in the right way.

This book explores different learning methods and how people learn the way they do. The book looks into learning with music, learning through listening and movement, and how note taking can actually be a disadvantage when studying. This is the perfect book for those who have faulty memory and have a hard time studying for tests. The book is full of plenty of great tips that will help students who failed their past test, ace the next one.

• Authors : Peter Hollins (Author)
• Publisher : PH Learning Inc. (March 18, 2017)
• Pages : 162 pages

10. When Einstein Walked with Godel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought

When Einstein Walked with Godel: Excursion to the Edge of Thought by Jim Holt is more about the scientific aspect of Einstein’s life, and questions it poses today. The book addresses questions like “does time exist?” and “what is infinity?” This book helps readers explore the human mind, the cosmos, and more. Holt explains physics through humor and logic.

This book is informative and interesting. He uses sketches, experiments, and examples to help explain physics and Einstein’s work. The book has many essays on math, physics, and science. It is a lot of great information, but non-scientists should hold off on reading it, because the language is a bit complicated.

• Authors : Jim Holt (Author)
• Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition, First Printing (May 15, 2018)

11. Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum

Albert Einstein’s research on the theories of relativity and in quantum physics in general has changed the world of science. Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum is a book about another man’s research, Lee Smolin. Smolin has researched quantum physics and believes that some of the problems they face are unsolvable. This book has all kinds of information on physics.

The book is full of puzzles, stories, experiments, and so much more. This book delves into the fun part of physics: the labs. This book aims to complete the work Einstein created, and argues that completing his work should be a top priority.  There are many quantum problems that the world faces. By working with Einstein’s previous work and creating new work, those problems could be solved.

• Authors : Lee Smolin (Author)
• Publisher : Penguin Press; Illustrated Edition (April 9, 2019)
• Pages : 352 pages

12. Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian

Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian by A. Douglas Stone is about the significance of Albert Einstein and his research. The book discusses Einstein’s relationships with quantum mechanics, religion, and more. The book is a combination of physics, biography, and science.

The book gives a glimpse into his life and how his personal relationships affected his science. Stone has so done so much research on Einstein and truly shares the person he was to the best of his ability. This book doesn’t diminish him to his work, but also discusses the person behind it. Albert Einstein was essential to the evolution of science, and Stone proves it with this book. This book is not too complicated of a read, and is actually very interesting. It’s a little long, but definitely worth the read.

• Authors : A. Douglas Stone (Author, Preface)
• Publisher : Princeton University Press; Revised Edition (October 6, 2015)
• Pages : 344 pages

13. Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified

Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified by Richard Wolfson is a book about relativity that is easy to read. This book was not created for physicists. In fact, it was made for everyone but. Wolfson is a physicist himself. With this book, he aims to explain different elements of physics and the ideas that are associated with them. Wolfson explains time travel, black holes, curved space, and more in this book. He was everyone to have an idea of how physics works. He answers many commonly asked questions.

This book isn’t easy to read, but it is much simpler than many other physics books. The language isn’t too complicated. It is a great book for beginners, and anyone else who wants to know about Einstein, physics, and the theory of relativity.

• Authors : Richard Wolfson (Author)
• Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company; Illustrated Edition (November 17, 2003)
• Pages : 288 pages

14. Relativity: The Special and the General Theory

Relativity: The Special and the General Theory by Albert Einstein is on its 100th anniversary edition. The book was written by Einstein, but this edition has commentary from Hanoch Gutfreund and Jürgen Renn. Einstein wrote this book for popular audiences. His intent was to explain relativity to modern audiences who wouldn’t ordinarily understand it. He wanted everyone to understand his work, not just physicists.

This book has an introduction, and an analysis of Einstein’s work that is contributed by Gutfreund and Renn. This book is the perfect read for curious minds who love Einstein. This book is very helpful for understanding Einstein and the work he did. He was a brilliant man who wanted everyone to understand him.

• Authors : Albert Einstein (Author), Hanoch Gutfreund (Commentary), Jürgen Renn (Commentary)
• Publisher : Princeton University Press; 100th Anniversary ed. Edition (June 16, 2015)
• Pages : 320 pages

15. Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein’s General Relativity

Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein’s General Relativity by James B. Hartie is an introduction to general relativity and the work of Einstein. This book is informative and thought-provoking. It is the perfect book for physics professors to use as their class textbook. The book has information on Einstein, but also on physics in general. The book is the perfect combination of math and science.

This book includes discussions on many topics: The Global Positioning System, black holes, X-ray sources, pulsars, quasars, the Big Bang, gravitational waves, and more. This book is super informative. It has lots of knowledge on physics that goes into depth on all of the topics. This book can be boring at times, but it is certainly not under-researched.

• Authors : James Hartle (Author)
• Publisher : Pearson (December 26, 2002)
• Pages : 608 pages

16. The Ultimate Quotable Einstein

Albert Einstein was a notable man who said a lot of great things. The Ultimate Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice includes some of the best quotes Einstein said. The book is full of 1,600 quotes that came from the brilliant mind of Einstein. The books fall understand different topics, like “On Race and Prejudice,” and “On and to Children.”

In addition to the many Einstein quotes this book has, it also has a chronology of Einstein’s life and achievements. This book is perfect for people who want to use an Einstein quote, but have no source to back it up. This book works perfectly for a “works cited” page in an essay. Instead of scouring through countless quotes, this book helps readers find and choose the best one for them.

• Authors : Albert Einstein (Author), Alice Calaprice (Editor), Freeman Dyson (Foreword)
• Publisher : Princeton University Press; Illustrated Edition (September 23, 2013)

17. Einstein’s War: How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Victorious Nationalism of World War I

Albert Einstein’s work spans wars, two of the most notable being World War I and World War II. Einstein’s War: How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Victorious Nationalism of World War I by Matthew Stanley discusses how Einstein’s work impacted World War I.

Even though Einstein is more associated with World War II, the first world war had a great deal in contributing to his success. It shaped him to be the person he was. During this war, Einstein was working on general relativity that helped blockading in Berlin. Even though he never fought, he did a lot of behind the scenes science work for the war. This book delves into the work Einstein did for the war. He did many notable things that would not have been possible without his position in the first world war.

• Authors : Matthew Stanley (Author)
• Publisher : Dutton; Illustrated Edition (May 21, 2019)
• Pages : 400 pages

18. Einstein’s Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists

Einstein’s Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non- Scientists by Richard Wolfson and The Great Courses is an introduction to modern physics. The book is on its second edition, so it is up to date on all kinds of new information. The book is meant for non-scientists. It aims to help everyday people who don’t know about physics. This book makes complex concepts simple and easy to understand.

The book can be read, but it is also audible, so readers can enjoy listening to the actual lecture. This book is great for beginner scientists, and anyone who wants to understand physics and the work that Einstein spent his life committing to.

• Authors : Professor Richard Wolfson (Author)

19. Einstein: The Man, The Genius, and the Theory of Relativity

Albert Einstein was a great man of history. He spent his early years making science experiments in Germany before and the work he did when he moved to the United States. Einstein: The Man, The Genius, and the Theory of Relativity by Walter Issacson is all about Einstein’s life. This book discusses every aspect of Einstein’s life, from E= MC2 to his marriages and children.

The book isn’t too long, so it focuses on the highlights of Einstein’s life. Because of this, the book does not get too into depth into Einstein’s life. The book has lots of great information, but only scratches the surface on Einstein. The book has wonderful accompanying photos that help readers understand the content of the book in an interesting way.

• Publisher : Andre Deutsch; Illustrated Edition (August 7, 2018)
• Pages : 160 pages

20. Einstein on the Run: How Britain Saved The World’s Greatest Scientist

It is a known fact that Einstein is a German who lived in the United States. What is lesser known is the fact that he lived in Britain, too. Einstein on the Run: How Britain Saved the World’s Greatest Scientist by Andrew Robinson is about Einstein’s short residence in England. The place was a perfect refuge for Einstein against Nazi assasins.

The book recounts the work Einstein did in England, how the country saved his life, and why he eventually left. Einstein spent plenty of time in England, and almost became a citizen. But what changed? And what effect did it have on his science? These are the questions addressed in this book. Living in England wasn’t a huge part of Einstein’s life, but it was important.

• Authors : Andrew Robinson (Author)
• Publisher : Yale University Press; Illustrated Edition (October 8, 2019)
• Pages : 376 pages

Choosing the Best Albert Einstein Books

Albert Einstein was an incredible physicist, and an even more incredible man. He did amazing work with physics and science. When people hear E=MC2, they think of Einstein. He discovered the theory of relativity and changed the way people viewed and used physics. Einstein passed away in 1955, but he is still relevant in the world of science. He was a kind, empathetic soul who did amazing work. These books explain just the kind of man and he was, and helps readers understand him on a whole new level. They explain his history, his science, and best of all, they explain his character.

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Albert Einstein

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 16, 2019 | Original: October 27, 2009

The German-born physicist Albert Einstein developed the first of his groundbreaking theories while working as a clerk in the Swiss patent office in Bern. After making his name with four scientific articles published in 1905, he went on to win worldwide fame for his general theory of relativity and a Nobel Prize in 1921 for his explanation of the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect. An outspoken pacifist who was publicly identified with the Zionist movement, Einstein emigrated from Germany to the United States when the Nazis took power before World War II. He lived and worked in Princeton, New Jersey, for the remainder of his life.

Einstein’s Early Life (1879-1904)

Born on March 14, 1879, in the southern German city of Ulm, Albert Einstein grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Munich. As a child, Einstein became fascinated by music (he played the violin), mathematics and science. He dropped out of school in 1894 and moved to Switzerland, where he resumed his schooling and later gained admission to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich. In 1896, he renounced his German citizenship, and remained officially stateless before becoming a Swiss citizen in 1901.

Did you know? Almost immediately after Albert Einstein learned of the atomic bomb's use in Japan, he became an advocate for nuclear disarmament. He formed the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists and backed Manhattan Project scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer in his opposition to the hydrogen bomb.

While at Zurich Polytechnic, Einstein fell in love with his fellow student Mileva Maric, but his parents opposed the match and he lacked the money to marry. The couple had an illegitimate daughter, Lieserl, born in early 1902, of whom little is known. After finding a position as a clerk at the Swiss patent office in Bern, Einstein married Maric in 1903; they would have two more children, Hans Albert (born 1904) and Eduard (born 1910).

Einstein’s Miracle Year (1905)

While working at the patent office, Einstein did some of the most creative work of his life, producing no fewer than four groundbreaking articles in 1905 alone. In the first paper, he applied the quantum theory (developed by German physicist Max Planck) to light in order to explain the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect, by which a material will emit electrically charged particles when hit by light. The second article contained Einstein’s experimental proof of the existence of atoms, which he got by analyzing the phenomenon of Brownian motion, in which tiny particles were suspended in water.

In the third and most famous article, titled “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” Einstein confronted the apparent contradiction between two principal theories of physics: Isaac Newton’s concepts of absolute space and time and James Clerk Maxwell’s idea that the speed of light was a constant. To do this, Einstein introduced his special theory of relativity, which held that the laws of physics are the same even for objects moving in different inertial frames (i.e. at constant speeds relative to each other), and that the speed of light is a constant in all inertial frames. A fourth paper concerned the fundamental relationship between mass and energy, concepts viewed previously as completely separate. Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2 (where “c” was the constant speed of light) expressed this relationship.

From Zurich to Berlin (1906-1932)

Einstein continued working at the patent office until 1909, when he finally found a full-time academic post at the University of Zurich. In 1913, he arrived at the University of Berlin, where he was made director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. The move coincided with the beginning of Einstein’s romantic relationship with a cousin of his, Elsa Lowenthal, whom he would eventually marry after divorcing Mileva. In 1915, Einstein published the general theory of relativity, which he considered his masterwork. This theory found that gravity, as well as motion, can affect time and space. According to Einstein’s equivalence principle–which held that gravity’s pull in one direction is equivalent to an acceleration of speed in the opposite direction–if light is bent by acceleration, it must also be bent by gravity. In 1919, two expeditions sent to perform experiments during a solar eclipse found that light rays from distant stars were deflected or bent by the gravity of the sun in just the way Einstein had predicted.

The general theory of relativity was the first major theory of gravity since Newton’s, more than 250 years before, and the results made a tremendous splash worldwide, with the London Times proclaiming a “Revolution in Science” and a “New Theory of the Universe.” Einstein began touring the world, speaking in front of crowds of thousands in the United States, Britain, France and Japan. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for his work on the photoelectric effect, as his work on relativity remained controversial at the time. Einstein soon began building on his theories to form a new science of cosmology, which held that the universe was dynamic instead of static, and was capable of expanding and contracting.

Einstein Moves to the United States (1933-39)

A longtime pacifist and a Jew, Einstein became the target of hostility in Weimar Germany, where many citizens were suffering plummeting economic fortunes in the aftermath of defeat in the Great War. In December 1932, a month before Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Einstein made the decision to emigrate to the United States, where he took a position at the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey . He would never again enter the country of his birth.

By the time Einstein’s wife Elsa died in 1936, he had been involved for more than a decade with his efforts to find a unified field theory, which would incorporate all the laws of the universe, and those of physics, into a single framework. In the process, Einstein became increasingly isolated from many of his colleagues, who were focused mainly on the quantum theory and its implications, rather than on relativity.

Einstein’s Later Life (1939-1955)

In the late 1930s, Einstein’s theories, including his equation E=mc2, helped form the basis of the development of the atomic bomb. In 1939, at the urging of the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt advising him to approve funding for the development of uranium before Germany could gain the upper hand. Einstein, who became a U.S. citizen in 1940 but retained his Swiss citizenship, was never asked to participate in the resulting Manhattan Project , as the U.S. government suspected his socialist and pacifist views. In 1952, Einstein declined an offer extended by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s premier, to become president of Israel .

Throughout the last years of his life, Einstein continued his quest for a unified field theory. Though he published an article on the theory in Scientific American in 1950, it remained unfinished when he died, of an aortic aneurysm, five years later. In the decades following his death, Einstein’s reputation and stature in the world of physics only grew, as physicists began to unravel the mystery of the so-called “strong force” (the missing piece of his unified field theory) and space satellites further verified the principles of his cosmology.

HISTORY Vault: Secrets of Einstein's Brain

Originally stolen by the doctor trusted to perform his autopsy, scientists over the decades have examined the brain of Albert Einstein to try and determine what made this seemingly normal man tick.

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Two Books on Einstein and the World He Made

A lbert Einstein is one of the most written-about figures of the 20th century, and for good reason. His theories upended the system that physicists had used to describe the world since Newton. Along the way, he became a figure of public fascination—a true celebrity. Now two books further scrutinize different aspects of the man.

Samuel Graydon’s “Einstein in Time and Space” is not an exhaustive biography. Instead it presents 99 vignettes, most of them one to three pages long, that highlight key qualities of this complex person: the curious child, the rebellious student, the serial adulterer, the wily prankster, the loyal friend, the civil-rights defender, the intellect unsurpassed in his time. Mr. Graydon, the science editor at the Times Literary Supplement, has chosen his number of chapters in a playful homage to the atomic number of the element einsteinium.

Even if readers are familiar with these stories, Mr. Graydon’s approach often delivers a fresh take on episodes not strongly emphasized in other biographies. Here is Einstein the engineer patenting a unique refrigerator design and a hearing aid. There he is building a miniature cable car out of matchboxes for his young son Hans. “That was one of the nicest toys I had,” Hans later recalled.

As a correspondent, Einstein could be quite impish: “So, what are you up to, you frozen whale, you smoked, dried, canned piece of soul, or whatever else I would like to hurl at your head?” he once wrote to a friend. While starting his career in Bern, Switzerland, the young physicist formed a little club called the Olympia Academy with two friends to discuss science and philosophy. “Einstein, despite being the youngest,” writes Mr. Graydon, “was elected president, earning him the title ‘Albert Ritter von Steissbein’ (roughly, ‘Sir Albert, Knight of Backside’). A certificate was made up, featuring a drawing of a bust of Einstein beneath a string of sausages.”

Mr. Graydon’s stated goal is to point out “the inconsistencies inherent in a life, the inexplicable, incompatible, insane motivations that punctuate days and years.” The author notes how Einstein, a devoted pacifist, maintained a close friendship with the German chemist Fritz Haber, who pioneered the use of both chlorine and mustard gas during World War I. He observes that the deep thinker didn’t pass up the chance to party with the movie stars Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks when out in California.

The book also includes moments of quiet dignity, such as the story of the black contralto Marian Anderson, who had been invited in 1937 to give a concert at Princeton University but was denied a room at the local hotel due to her race. Einstein simply prepared a room for her at his home, an invitation that was extended from that day forward whenever she visited the town.

Mr. Graydon has woven from these separate strands a compelling and beautifully written narrative, though I have one caveat. In his acknowledgments, the author admits that he “lightly fictionalized” a few chapters about representative days at Einstein’s office. Given the wealth of material on hand, a summary of Einstein’s life hardly needs any false embellishments.

While “Einstein in Time and Space” primarily concentrates on Einstein’s personal experiences, Hanoch Gutfreund and Jürgen Renn’s “The Einsteinian Revolution” delves deeply into his science. Mr. Gutfreund, the academic director of the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Mr. Renn, the director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, have written extensively on Einstein and with this book take on a particular challenge: “to dispel the popular myth that Albert Einstein, the unconventional scientific genius, instigated an overwhelming scientific revolution through pure thought alone.” They succeed in that goal, along the way providing an excellent overview of Einstein’s major discoveries, from his early work on quantum theory to general relativity, the new law of gravity that overturned Newton. It is a welcome addition to any collection of books on modern physics.

A true understanding of Einstein’s accomplishments, they write, demands a revision of the legendary concept of the “paradigm shift.” The notion was introduced in 1962 by the historian of science Thomas Kuhn, who argued that a scientific revolution suddenly replaces a previous system of knowledge with a new one unconnected to the past. But Messrs. Gutfreund and Renn prefer to view Einstein’s work as an evolutionary process, where the new system is built upon the scientific scaffolding already in place.

In the late 19th century, that scaffolding was constructed around three dominant areas of physics: mechanics, thermodynamics and electromagnetism. Troubling puzzles were beginning to arise at the intersections between these fields, and many scientists attempted to find solutions within their own isolated specialties. But Einstein—with his deep reading of the scientific literature and the philosophy of science, his constant dialogues with scientific friends, and his careful attention to new experimental discoveries—stood above those boundaries, enabling him to perceive an entirely new vista.

The authors provide a detailed examination of Einstein’s annus mirabilis in 1905, when he recognized that light can act like a particle as well as a wave; proved that atoms exist; linked matter with energy in that celebrated equation E=mc2; and, with the special theory of relativity, swept away the idea that we live in a fixed space governed by a universal clock.

Before these discoveries, the authors note, the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz had developed a mathematical scheme to explain the behavior of charged particles moving through the ether—the medium that supposedly permeates physical space to allow light to travel. Lorentz’s equations foresaw many of the phenomena later explained by special relativity. But his physical interpretation, complicated and full of assumptions, was still rooted in classical physics. Einstein jettisoned this kludge by doing away with the ether, recognizing that space and time are not absolute and declaring that the speed of light is a constant whether a body is stationary or in motion.

Einstein didn’t arrive at this solution in a single eureka moment. It was the result of deep reflection over the years, influenced by such philosophers as David Hume, who questioned the causal relations between events; Ernst Mach, who objected to Newton’s idea of absolute space; and Henri Poincaré, who early on noted the possible relativity of time. Einstein stood upon the shoulders of giants to gain his new perspective.

While “The Einsteinian Revolution” is written for a general audience, a background in physics helps make certain sections more accessible. Yet the authors’ overall thesis is clear and convincing. “The substance of Einstein’s work was not new,” they stress, “but rather was the result of an accumulation of knowledge over centuries; it was his conceptual organization that was new.” Their book, along with Mr. Graydon’s “Einstein in Time and Space,” enhances our understanding of both a great scientist and an exemplary humanist.

Ms. Bartusiak is a professor emeritus at MIT and the author of “Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony.”

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History allbert einstein: the gentle touch of genius.

In 1944, shortly before I came to Princeton as a photographer with the University, I was driving along Mercer Street at dusk when half-way down the block, at street level, I saw a bodiless head—just two arms out-stretched and a strangely familiar mop of shaggy white hair. Acting on professional instinct, I jumped out of the car, camera in hand, and snapped a picture. Only then did I hear the croaking sounds he was making, and see the strained expression on his face. I rushed over, grabbed him under the arms, and hauled out one of the greatest scientists the world has ever known. Albert Einstein had fallen down an open manhole.

Off and on for the next 11 years of our curious association, Professor Einstein reminded me of my promise about the manhole picture. It got to be a kind of joke between us; but I could never bring myself to tell him that the last laugh was on me. I was ashamed to—partly, I think, because of old Pow Edwards, a geometry teacher who had made me feel a hopeless failure when I was a schoolboy back in England. At my age, I didn’t want to be tagged a dunce all over again, and I was still leary of mathematicians.

I was appalled. This was to be an official birthday portrait. I wondered why, since he hadn’t done anything about the rest of his face, he had bothered to shave. I could hardly suggest that he spruce himself up for my camera, though on several occasions later I did try surreptitiously to brush his hair back behind his ears—accidentally, as it were, while arranging the lights behind his chair. But the unruly swatch always sprang forward again with a stubbornness of its own.

I gave up on his hair, but his feet continued to bother me. I am an Englishman by birth, with perhaps too rigid ideas about proper apparel—and Professor Einstein seldom wore socks. Though I tried taking all his pictures from the knees or waist up, it was difficult to keep my eyes off those bare ankles. I even considered sending him an anonymous gift of a pair of socks, thought that would have been not only insulting but useless.

Once when I brought him a dozen extra prints of a particularly good portrait to give to his friends, he flipped through them, then shoved the whole batch aside. “I hate my pictures,” he said. “Look at my face. If it wasn’t for this,” he added, clapping his hands over his mustache in mock despair, “I’d look like a vooman .”

On another occasion, when a young couple at whose wedding he had been best man brought their son—a little boy of 18 months—to meet him, the child took one look and burst into a screaming fit. The parents were speechless with embarrassment, but Einstein’s eyes lighted up. He smiled approvingly, patted the youngster on the top of his head, and crooned: “You’re the first person in years who has told me what you really think of me.”

I was convinced that it would be extremely difficult to keep the cooperation of a man with so little vanity. At the same time I kept expecting him to change into my private notion of the way a world genius should be—proud, brilliantly erudite, perhaps somewhat impatient with men of lesser intellect.

But he didn’t change. Instead, I think he changed me a little. Gradually I lost my awe of him. So much so that one day I blurted: “Professor Einstein, why don’t you wear socks?”

The way he said it—humorous, but sad too—made me realize that his sloppy sweat-shirt and uncombed hair and sockless shoes were somehow right for him. They truly reflected the humility of the man. If I’d taken his picture any other way I would have gotten my own image of how a great mathematician ought to look.

Thus Einstein taught me something about photography: that I must approach a subject with an open mind as well as an open shutter.

Besides humility, I began to sense another factor behind Einstein’s unkempt appearance: a profound simplicity that allowed him to ignore superficiality and go directly to the heart of things. Where most of us are like kites caught in the branches, entangled with our concerns for such things as comfort, success, the impression we are making on others, Einstein’s mind soared free. I doubt that he even knew what he ate. Certainly, he didn’t watch where he walked, of he wouldn’t have fallen down that manhole. Once when some company had sent him a very sizeable consulting fee, he used the check for a bookmark and lost the book.

I remember the afternoon that I watched helplessly as a newspaper photographer rudely backed him off the sidewalk and into the bushes, taking pictures and firing impertinent questions. When I told Einstein how mortified I was that any professional colleague of mine should behave that way he said, “Oh, I don’t pay any attention to those things. Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.”

Another time he was at his desk when I entered his study, feverishly jotting in his notebook, not even aware that there was a cut on his face and that two bright streams of blood were running down his check. I was so alarmed that I interrupted to suggest that he put on a bandage. He muttered, “It’s not a matter,” and went on writing.

What struck me was that he automatically ignored the trivial, whether it happened to be a stranger’s rudeness or a cut on the cheek. He simplified his concerns in order to spend his brain wisely. But it wasn’t just a matter of withdrawing, or being “absent-minded-professorish.” For this same uncluttered attitude allowed him to speak directly with unaffected kindness and respect to every human being he met, child or adult, ignoring externals.

One afternoon a little girl of about seven, who also lived on Mercer Street in Princeton, rang Dr. Einstein’s doorbell and asked to see him. Miss Dukas said it would be impossible to disturb the professor. Just then Einstein happened to come down the front stairs. When he asked the youngster what she wanted, she took a hand from behind her back and offered him a sticky square of fudge which she said she has made herself. Einstein thanked her and ate the candy, whereupon she pulled the other hand from behind her back, showed him her arithmetic homework, and asked for help. He took her on his knee, explained that he couldn’t help her, that it would be unfair both to her teacher and to herself. Then he sent her off with a few cookies, to balance the non-returnable candy gift.

The gentle touch of his genius quickened my own life as it must have that little girl’s, and so many others with whom he had even the slightest contact. It would be silly to claim that Einstein and I ever became friends. Now and then he would call me “Hans”—names, like appearances, were unimportant to him. But he always knew who I was, and sometimes he would stroke my arm, delighted to see me. I think he liked and trusted me. It made me feel almost protective about him; yet so direct and compassionate was his perception, I felt that he understood more about me than I did myself.

One morning in his study at the Institute for Advanced Study, after a tiring picture session, I caught sight of his blackboard, covered with little chalk hieroglyphs. I don’t know why, but for the first time the mathematical equations seemed to mock me. I stood glazing at them blankly, then the chalk marks went blurry and I shut my eyes. For that fraction of a second I was being kept after class and Pow Edwards was standing just behind me, glowering, knowing perfectly well I was stumped, all ready to call me stupid.

I shook my head and turned around. Instead of Pow Edwards, there was Albert Einstein, quietly watching me. “Professor,” I said, with an attempt at flipness, “You and I are opposite poles — you’re the world’s best mathematician, and I’m the world’s worst.”

What he said was not only intimate and kind, but so true that it was uncanny. For a moment I was stunned by the thought that this mathematical genius should be the only person who ever suggested that it might not have been my fault entirely; that I might not have been so stupid after all. Through the most direct kind of illumination, he had dispelled a dark cloud that had followed me for 30 years. And he hadn’t even called me by my right name.

It was then, I think, that I first made the connection between those equations on the blackboard and his several kinds of simplicity: the uncluttered quality of his vision; the directness of his perceptions; his disregard for appearances and material trivia. His famous Theory of Relativity, which altered all our ideas about the universe and led to the splitting of the atom, was a product of insight rather than of complex computation. He arrived at it almost completely by himself. He was not part of a collective laboratory effort. He had only his own mind, working with pencil and paper, chalk and blackboard, and humble patience, piercing through the surface incidentals to the underlying principles.

There is no record to show that he observed any particular liturgy or recognized any particular dogma, yet I too had the feeling that he was a devout man. “The Lord is sophisticated, but not malicious,” are words inscribed in German on the mantelpiece in one of the mathematical rooms in Princeton’s Fine Hall. Those were the words of Albert Einstein.

There were fewer people at his funeral than at his birth. The world of science and many laymen would have jammed the road to his place of the rest had there been such a spot. But his wish was granted—there is no cemetery, no shrine, no marker, no urn. Albert Einstein has only one monument—his work.

This was originally published in the March 17, 1964 issue of PAW.

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Albert Einstein’s Role in the Atomic Bomb Was the “One Great Mistake in My Life”

Einstein and his colleague Leo Szilard played a crucial role in encouraging the United States to create an atomic bomb.

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Although acquainted with physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer , Einstein never worked on the Manhattan Project that led to the development of nuclear weapons, nor was he aware of plans to drop the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But Einstein and his colleague Leo Szilard played a crucial role in encouraging President Franklin D. Roosevelt to pursue the bomb in the first place.

A Startling Visit from a Friend

It all started with a visit by Szilard, a Hungarian-German physicist who previously studied with Einstein in the 1920s. Their research led to the creation of a refrigerator pump that required no moving parts, resulting in what is most commonly called the Einstein refrigerator, according to Genius in the Shadows , a Szilard biography by William Lanouette.

After their collaboration, Szilard conceived the idea of a nuclear “chain reaction” while working in London in 1933. The next year, he convinced the British government to make his chain reaction patent a military secret, according to Lanouette, successfully forestalling a nuclear arms race with Adolf Hitler , who by then was the Chancellor of Germany.

However, after scientists in Germany experimentally split the uranium atom in 1938, Szilard became deeply concerned about idea of Hitler obtaining an atomic bomb first and began raising alarm bells among his personal connections. In Lanouette’s words, he “worked frantically to start the very arms race he had feared.”

In 1939, Szilard visited his old friend Einstein, stunning the fellow physicist by describing the nuclear chain reaction concept. “I haven’t thought of that at all,” Einstein admitted, according to Lanouette. Einstein immediately agreed to warn his friends in the Belgian Royal Family that Nazi Germany might have eyes on the Belgian Congo, which contained the world’s largest uranium supply.

But after that initial meeting, Szilard became convinced that U.S. officials should be warned about Germany’s intentions as well. Szilard and Einstein met for a second time three weeks later, discussing how to get word to President Roosevelt and starting work on one of the most impactful and historic letters in the 20 th century.

The Einstein-Szilard Letter

Through friends, Szilard met with Alexander Sachs, a Wall Street banker with access to the White House. Sachs said he had already spoken with Roosevelt about uranium but that the government decided not to pursue uranium research because Columbia University physicists had told them the prospects of an atomic bomb were minimal, according to The New World 1939/1946: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission .

Sachs felt Roosevelt might be persuaded by someone of Einstein’s reputation, according to the book. Einstein—who was also encouraged by Hungarian physicists, including refugees Eugene Wigner and Edward Teller— sent a letter dated August 2, 1939, urging Roosevelt about the possibility that Nazi Germany could develop an atomic bomb.

“In the course of the last four months it has been made probable… that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated,” the letter read . “Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.”

Warning that this phenomenon could also lead to the construction of particularly devastating bombs, Einstein encouraged Roosevelt to consider a similar program in the United States and urged him to make contact with physicists working on chain reactions in the United States, according to the letter.

Preoccupied with events in Europe, Roosevelt didn’t respond for nearly two months, making the physicists fear he wasn’t taking the threat of nuclear warfare seriously, according to the U.S. Department of Energy . On the contrary, however, Roosevelt felt Hitler achieving unilateral possession of such powerful bombs would pose a grave risk to the nation.

The Letter Spurs Action

Roosevelt wrote back to Einstein on October 19, 1939, informing him about the establishment of a committee of civilian and military representatives to study uranium, according to the Energy Department. Although this was only the first of many such steps and decisions along the way, this committee was ultimately the catalyst for the Manhattan Project.

In 1940, Einstein sent Roosevelt two more letters on March 7 and April 25, recommending additional work on nuclear research, according to An Einstein Encyclopedia by Alice Calaprice and others. He wrote again on March 25, 1945, expressing his growing fears about the possible misuse of uranium, but it wasn’t delivered before Roosevelt’s death a little more than two weeks later.

The more famous 1939 letter, however, came to be known as the Einstein-Szilard letter and is widely considered to be the key stimulus for the United States developing the atomic bomb, according to Lanouette.

Einstein never worked on the Manhattan Project and had no prior knowledge of plans to use the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. A pacifist who despised war, Einstein came to deeply regret his role in the development of the bomb, later saying : “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing.”

Einstein harbored these regrets for this rest of his life. In 1954, one year before his death, Einstein discussed the matter in a letter to his friend, chemist Linus Pauling. Although he cited the fear of Germany developing a bomb as a partial justification, he nevertheless described his letter to Roosevelt as the “one great mistake in my life.”

Einstein Appears in the 2023 Oppenheimer Movie

Oppenheimer , now available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV+ , is directed and written by Christopher Nolan . Cillian Murphy stars as J. Robert Oppenheimer , and Tom Conti portrays Albert Einstein . Other cast members include Emily Blunt , Matt Damon , Robert Downey Jr. , Florence Pugh , Rami Malek , Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, and Kenneth Branagh.

Colin McEvoy joined the Biography.com staff in 2023, and before that had spent 16 years as a journalist, writer, and communications professional. He is the author of two true crime books: Love Me or Else and Fatal Jealousy . He is also an avid film buff, reader, and lover of great stories.

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The Old-Fashioned Library at the Heart of the A.I. Boom

By Cade Metz Photographs by Christie Hemm Klok

OpenAI may be changing how the world interacts with language. But inside the company’s San Francisco office, there is a very old-fashioned homage to the written word: a library.

Many of the books lining the walls were suggested by the company’s more than 1,200 employees.

On one shelf is “American Prometheus,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

Three books over is “Endurance,” about the doomed Antarctic journey of Ernest Shackleton.

There are multiple copies of “The Precipice,” a book about the existential risks facing humanity, along with science fiction classics like “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

There are also books about taking mind-altering drugs and empowering women. And what A.I. company’s office library would be complete without Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”

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By Cade Metz

Photographs by Christie Hemm Klok

The two-story library has Oriental rugs, shaded lamps dotting its desks and rows of hardbacks lining its walls. It is the architectural centerpiece of the offices of OpenAI, the start-up whose online chatbot, ChatGPT, showed the world that machines can instantly generate their own poetry and prose .

The building, which was once a mayonnaise factory, looks like a typical tech office, with its communal work spaces, well-stocked micro-kitchens and private nap rooms spread across three floors in San Francisco’s Mission District.

But then there is that library, with the ambience of a Victorian Era reading room. Its shelves offer everything from Homer’s “The Iliad” to David Deutsch’s “The Beginning of Infinity,” a favorite of Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive.

Built at Mr. Altman’s request and stocked with titles suggested by his staff, the OpenAI library is an apt metaphor for the world’s hottest tech company, whose success was fueled by language — lots and lots of language. OpenAI’s chatbot was not built like the average internet app. ChatGPT learned its skills by analyzing huge amounts of text that was written, edited and curated by humans , including encyclopedia articles, news stories, poetry and, yes, books.

The library also represents the paradox at the heart of OpenAI’s technology. Authors and publishers, including The New York Times , are suing OpenAI, claiming the company illegally used their copyrighted content to build its A.I. systems. Many authors worry that the technology will ultimately take away their livelihood.

Many OpenAI employees, on the other hand, believe the company is using human creativity to fuel more human creativity. They believe their use of copyrighted works is “fair use” under the law, because they are transforming these works into something new.

“To say that this is a public debate right now is an understatement,” said Shannon Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner of SkB Architects, the architectural firm that renovated OpenAI’s headquarters and designed its library. “Though things might look like they are going in different directions, the library serves as a constant reminder of human creativity.”

When OpenAI hired Ms. Gaffney’s firm to renovate the building in 2019, Mr. Altman said he wanted a library with an academic aura.

He wanted it to be a reminder of the Green Library, a Romanesque library at Stanford University, where he was a student for two years before dropping out to build a social media app; the Rose Reading Room, a Beaux-Arts study hall on the top floor of the New York Public Library in Midtown Manhattan; and the library-like bar inside the now defunct Nomad Hotel, 15 blocks south of the Rose.

“My dining room and living room at home is inside a library — floor-to-ceiling books all the way around,” Mr. Altman said in an interview. “There is something about sitting in the middle of knowledge on the shelves at vast scale that I find interesting.”

Once the library was built, OpenAI’s head of real estate began acquiring titles, many suggested by the company’s researchers, engineers and other employees.

Natalie Staudacher, who was part of a team that decamped to the library as they were working on an early version of ChatGPT, suggested Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos.”

Others, like “American Art of the 20th Century,” seem to acknowledge that OpenAI’s chatbot technology now learns from both text and pictures.

Some, like David Foster Wallace’s encyclopedic postmodern novel “Infinite Jest,” seem like a sly comment on the new world OpenAI is helping to create.

Many titles, like “English Masterpieces, 700-1900” and “Ideas and Images in World Art,” seem like the weighty hardbacks that professional decorators place strategically inside hotel lobbies because they look the part. Still, the library is a reflection of the organization that built it.

On a recent afternoon, two paperbacks sat beside each other at eye-level: “Birds of Lake Merritt” ( a field guide to the birds found in a wildlife refuge in Oakland, Calif. ) and “Fake Birds of Lake Merritt” (a parody written by GPT-3, an early version of the technology that drives ChatGPT ).

Some employees see the library as a quieter place to work. Long Ouyang, an A.I. researcher, keeps a rolling desk against the wall. Others see it as an unusually elegant break room. On weekends, Ryan Greene, another researcher, pumps his digital music through the audio speakers tucked among the hardbacks.

It is, other employees said, a far more inspiring place to work than a cubicle. “This is why so many people choose to work in the library,” Ms. Staudacher said.

Recently, Mr. Greene began feeding lists of his favorite books into ChatGPT and asking for new recommendations. At one point, the chatbot recommended “The Book of Disquiet ,” a posthumously published autobiography from the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa. A friend, who knew his tastes well, had recommended that he read the same book.

“Given the trends and patterns in things that have happened in the past, the technology can suggest things for the future,” Mr. Greene said.

Ms. Gaffney, from OpenAI’s architectural firm, argued that this blend of the human and the machine will continue. Then she paused, before adding: “That, at least, is what I hope and feel.”

Cade Metz writes about artificial intelligence, driverless cars, robotics, virtual reality and other emerging areas of technology. More about Cade Metz

Explore Our Coverage of Artificial Intelligence

News  and Analysis

Ilya Sutskever, the OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist who in November joined three other board members to force out Sam Altman before saying he regretted the move, is leaving the company .

OpenAI has unveiled a new version of its ChatGPT chatbot  that can receive and respond to voice commands, images and videos.

A bipartisan group of senators released a long-awaited legislative plan for A.I. , calling for billions in funding to propel U.S. leadership in the technology while offering few details on regulations.

The Age of A.I.

D’Youville University in Buffalo had an A.I. robot speak at its commencement . Not everyone was happy about it.

A new program, backed by Cornell Tech, M.I.T. and U.C.L.A., helps prepare lower-income, Latina and Black female computing majors  for A.I. careers.

Publishers have long worried that A.I.-generated answers on Google would drive readers away from their sites. They’re about to find out if those fears are warranted, our tech columnist writes .

A new category of apps promises to relieve parents of drudgery, with an assist from A.I.  But a family’s grunt work is more human, and valuable, than it seems.

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Albert Einstein: The Genius Who Failed School - Biography Book Best Sellers Children's Biography Books Paperback – September 15, 2017

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Baby Professor (September 15, 2017)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 64 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1541912381
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• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.9 ounces
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• #737 in Children's Science Biographies (Books)
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