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REVIEWS
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GUIDE TO GLOBAL SCIENCE CULTURE Biography is often the construction of informed
Einstein: voyeurism, and there is no lack for either infor-
His Life and Universe mation or personal stories about Einstein. Many
By Walter Isaacson of his former acquaintances and loved ones long
(Simon and Schuster) ago published accounts of his life. But to write
the complete biography of a physicist of such
resounding intellect and importance, a person
must be either extremely well versed in his science
Intimate
or a masochist. Walter Isaacson is a masochist,
and he is, thankfully, a very talented one.
Isaacson is a career newsman with an adept
with
journalist’s eye for a good story. He was manag-
ing editor at Time for several years (including
the issue in which Einstein was named Person of
Einstein
the Century) before becoming the CEO of CNN.
Today he is the president and CEO of the Aspen
Institute and also a board member for several
corporations. He has written two other biog-
A new biography of Albert raphies of formidable men, Benjamin Franklin
and Henry Kissinger.
Einstein reveals the humanity In writing about Einstein, Isaacson exudes
both a crisp precision and profundity that belie
behind the genius. the difficulty of the physics Einstein created. He
magisterially guides us through the man’s expan-
T hink for a moment about the people in your workplace.
Have you ever considered that one of your coworkers
might forever revolutionize our understanding of the
uni­verse, bending space and time in his or her mind? Can you
imagine any of them attaining a celebrity status superceding
sive body of work that prefigured most modern
physics. Isaacson accomplishes this by using a
mere two equations: one of which you can surely
guess, and another that has been completely un-
dervalued and merits mentioning.
that of any current star of the cinema, for nothing other than More impressive than his lucid prose is
their sublime intellect? Isaacson’s deft interpretation of much of the
In 1902 the employees in a small patent office in Bern, larger context of Einstein’s work. He rightly
Switzerland, not far from the fabled Zytglogge clock tower, states that Einstein’s special theory of relativity
certainly could never have ventured that they had such an indi- is not as revolutionary as his original insights
vidual toiling among them. The recently hired, third-class tech- on the quantum problem. Einstein’s hesitations
nical expert, a 23-year-old high school dropout who scarcely about the loss of absolute cause and effect that his
made it through college due to his recurrent truancy, didn’t own contributions to quantum mechanics would
seem the man to overturn our view of the cosmos in a mere entail are superbly rendered in Isaacson’s tale.
three years’ time. There were no hints that this government Einstein could never believe that the universe is
clerk struggling for promotion to support his pregnant girl- fundamentally probabilistic, that one could not
friend, who made perhaps the most prodigious use of spare predict the decay of a nucleus, for example, with
time in history, would later be deemed Time’s Person of the absolute precision. “God does not play dice” was
Century. No one could have anticipated that his name and Einstein’s mantra, to which his friendly quantum
visage would become archetypes for genius—that he would adversary, Neils Bohr, once famously replied,
be “Einstein.” “Einstein, stop telling God what to do!”
Albert Einstein is a man we all know, but whom most of Isaacson even manages to incorporate much
us know little about. We recognize the legend but don’t typi- of the interpretive scholarship on Einstein’s ap-
cally contemplate the human who gave rise to it. Last year proach to science and the social context in which
the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which Einstein helped he devised his theories. He limns the thesis of
inaugurate, released the last extant parcel of private letters to physics historian Peter Galison: that Einstein’s
and from the late theoretical physicist. Some 3,500 previously job examining patents, especially those for syn-
unseen pages, revealing intimate details of Albert Einstein’s chronizing Bern’s clocks, like the Zytglogge, using
Photo illustration by Adam Billyeald
life, were made available to scholars for the first time. Walter light signals, might have supplemented Einstein’s
Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe is the first of the notorious reliance on pure thought in discovering
inevitable spate of new biographies that will attempt to incor- special relativity. He further elucidates the argu-
porate all we know about the man under the disheveled mane ments of the philosopher John Norton on Ein-
(Einsteinphiles won’t have to wait long for the second; this stein’s formulation of general relativity (Norton
spring a well-regarded German biography by Jürgen Neffe is helped edit Isaacson’s book) and the cultural and
being updated to accommodate the revelations and will be thematic studies of the legendary Einstein scholar
released in the US). Gerald Holton (who also vetted the book).
· May/June 2007 WWW.SEEDMAGAZINE.COM
To his credit, Isaacson enlisted scores of ex­perts Einstein. Isaacson’s tremendous scholarship in
to look over his shoulder during his writing: uncovering more of the less frequently discussed
Several historians and myriad physicists, includ- aspects of Einstein’s character will stand as a bench-
ing Nobel Prize winners Murray Gell-Mann mark for works to come.
and Dudley Herschbach, are noted for check- As with many great books, Einstein is not with-
ing his work. Masterful physicist-scribes, such out its peccadilloes and minor disappointments.
as Brian Greene and Lawrence Krauss, receive On top of an inexplicable early penchant for re-
profuse thanks for their editing. Einstein scholars, ferring to Einstein as “sassy,” using out-of-place
especially the physicists, can be very protective sports metaphors such as “across the goal line”
of their prophet and his legacy, and Isaacson’s and “open field runner,” and relying on Wikipedia
reverence for their expertise makes for exem­plary as a reference for Schrödinger’s Cat, one can’t
science writing. help wishing that Isaacson had gone further in
But Isaacsons’s true gift is in narrating the life his analysis. As a longtime purveyor of the news,
of a complicated man. Einstein was an aloof ideo- he is the ideal person to update Einstein for the
logue who despised authority (Zwang, German present day. Many of Einstein’s pronouncements
for “coercion” or “constraint,” was Einstein’s term as a public intellectual can be seen as remarkably
for it). He was also a renowned philanderer and prescient in light of recent events, especially those
free spirit who tended to maintain distance from on freedom, education, and the Israel-Palestine
his family and friends. Yet, for the first time, we debate. Our times lack for such a beloved scientist
see a portrait of Einstein as a sincere and caring, if with frank talk, and it is well within the purview
somewhat distracted, husband and father to his two of biography to acknowledge the lessons of its
sons and stepdaughters. Einstein also emerges as a subject for current dilemmas.
3 things we didn’t know about Einstein
1 Einstein kept portraits of three scientists—Isaac Newton, Michael
Faraday, and James Maxwell—hanging above his desk as he worked.
He also kept a single portrait of a non-scientist: Gandhi.
2 In a 1938 poll of the incoming Princeton class, Einstein placed second
in the “greatest living person” category. Hitler was first.
3 Einstein didn’t fail math in grade school, but one professor does hold
the distinction of failing Einstein in college, Jean Peret. In the course
Physics Experiments for Beginners, Einstein never listened to instructions
and once caused an explosion in the lab, requiring stitches in his hand.
He was reprimanded for “lack of diligence.”
jovial presence, quick with a joke and always the Lack of recognition in a person’s own lifetime
first to bellow a hearty laugh at his own expense. is typically one of the hallmarks of genius in art;
Upon hearing that the Nazis reputedly put a price not so in science. Einstein was a true celebrity of
on his head of $5,000, he quickly reached up, his time, and Isaacson has admirably resurrected
touched it, and exclaimed, “I didn’t know it was his ascension to fame through vivid descriptions
worth that much!” Isaacson dispels myths (such of the man’s work and personality. There may
as the unfortunate, oft-repeated contention that never come another Einstein, but there may also
Einstein failed math in grade school) and strikes not be any need for one. Weighing all that Einstein
the perfect balance between previous accounts of accomplished and has left for us, as Isaacson’s
Einstein, such as Abraham Pais’s technical Subtle Is biography informs us, the universe as we know it
the Lord and Albrecht Fölsing’s emotional Albert is still truly his. —Joshua Roebke
10.3 Didn’t Do a Body Good
Got milk? If you were a Neolithic European, the answer
would be probably not. Most mammals can digest milk only
during infancy, and only some humans drink milk all their lives, produc-
ing the lactase enzyme well into adulthood. To understand when this ad-
aptation arose, scientists sequenced DNA from Neolithic skeletons at five
European archaeological sites, looking for the gene associated with lactase
persistence. None had it, implying that European milk-drinking is a relatively
recent adaptation.
· May/June 2007