In 1905, an unknown patent clerk at the Swiss Patent Office published a paper that would revolutionize physics. A few years ago, he couldn’t find a job under any professor in the whole of Europe despite trying extremely hard. His father was worried over seeing his unemployed depressed son. He didn’t have a good rapport with his old professors and had made some good enemies due to his rebellious nature. He was stubborn, brave, courageous and paradoxical. That was often not an attribute for someone normal those days.
Einstein is a face who is synonymous with the word ‘genius’. Time magazine voted him as the ‘Person of the century’ just above Gandhi. He was a superstar in his day. Someone not celebrated in just Europe but loved in the USA back in the day. And this is a scintillating read of one of the greatest minds of all time.
Walter Isaacson is one of my favorite writers. He has captured the personal and professional life of Einstein in a brilliant fashion. This is a wonderfully written biography which would easily rank in one of the best biographies I have ever read.
Some insights from this book which are worth mentioning:
- Einstein had a penchant for thought experiments. Most of what he accomplished was due to his unconventional thought experiments to simplify things. This includes the famous Railway platform experiment to understand relativity.
- He focused a lot on imagination. He placed imagination on a higher pedestal than knowledge. He was a vividly imaginative person who was often lost in his own thoughts. Imagination can be a pretty effective tool and it is a pity that it is not often not stressed enough in modern culture.
- The things that often make you are often the ones that hurt you the most. Einstein had a contempt of authority. This attitude was pivotal for him to come up with theory of relativity. Almost no one was brave enough to challenge the supremacy of Newtonian Physics back in the day. Henri Poincare among others came close. But Einstein took the leap and came out victorious in his youth. But his stubborn nature started to hurt him when he waged a losing battle against Quantum Mechanics where probabilities took the front seat and strict laws were no longer applicable (Hence his famous quote rebutting it “God does not lay dice”). “To punish me for my contempt of authority, fate has made me an authority myself’ Einstein wrote this later in his life expressing his disappointment regarding this.
- He was someone who believed in strict causal determinism. He didn’t even believe in free will. And quantum mechanics bothered him. Not scientifically I presume, but philosophically too I suspect. Believing that the universe is random to a degree made him uncomfortable. He never accepted Quantum Mechanics and tried to disprove it all his life. He had intellectual battles with great scientists such as Schrodinger, Bohr, etc. on this issue. It might not be irrational to assume that his search for a Unified field Theory was an attempt to disprove Quantum Mechanics. He failed terribly in his quest to disprove it.
- The rise of anti-Jewish sentiments has been portrayed wonderfully in the book. It was self-evident on how the culture was degrading in the Nazi Germany. Intellectuals and philosophers kept quiet when Nazi’s ascended to power. Jews were slowly and steadily outcasted. Many of Einstein’s theories were rejected by Ultra-nationalists and were labelled ‘Jewish Science’ by most including his rival Nobel Laureate Philip Lenard. He had his holiday home destroyed and relatives/friends killed in the coming years.
- It is also amazing to see how anti-communist sentiments had taken over the US in late 1940’s and early 1950’s. There was a paranoia is the US against communists. And being linked to them could have landed anyone in big trouble. Einstein often battled such allegations due to his pro-socialism stance.
- He often faced personal tragedies. Sometimes in the form of his troubled first marriage or mental problems with his second son who suffered schizophrenia or a strained relationship with Hans, his first son. And his response was almost usual, he drowned himself in work. His productivity often ballooned in such times. Sometimes one needs work to escape rather than the usual escapes that individuals take from work.
- While reading the book, one can not help but appreciate the amazing sense of humor and wit that Einstein incorporates to address scientific, political and even sometimes personal matters. Life is too small to not have some sense of humor. It is amazing to see how a good sense of humor can help you carry through tough times.
- Einstein was a ‘pacifist’ for a lot of time. He advocated the youth to resist joining the army in order to prevent future wars. He attended conferences and gave speeches advocating his idea. But as Hitler and Nazi’s took power, he understood flaws in his own thought approach and toned down his ‘militant pacifist’ stance by multitudes. Einstein would have been a good investor. He was a pure Bayesian. One of his best qualities was his ability to change views on new evidence. This is a rare skill that I admire. It is hard for most people to do it. And Einstein did it multiple times in his career despite being a global celebrity. Putting aside your ego and accepting flaws in your prior thinking hits to me as a wonderful trait that very few admire.
- Every human is flawed. And in their own way. Einstein wasn’t someone without flaws. For example, he often had extra-marital affairs when married and when drowned in work, could turn extremely indifferent and unempathetic to his loved ones. Human beings are complex, even the extremely smart ones. Even though he seemed indifferent many times, he often cared and many times wept at the loss of someone close. There was a paradoxical element to his nature that made it hard for many to understand him.
- As the years went by, he became more actively involved in politics and took a deep interest in the welfare of the Jewish community. Young Einstein often stayed away from such matters. But his interest in these issues seems to be a consequence of the degradation of culture of tolerance he witnessed in Germany. His political comments often landed him in trouble even though he was revered globally back in the day.
- Around early 1950’s, Einstein had almost devoted 30 years of his life to a proving a unified field theory that connected relativity and electromagnetism. After 30 years of hard work and rigor, he wasn’t even any closer to it. Yet, when asked about his failed endeavor, he refused to have any regrets. Why? Because it was worth the risk. He had made his name, secured his position, so he could take the risk of proving something that was probably didn’t exist in the first place. The last 30 years of Einstein’s work don’t ever receive a mention because he couldn’t produce anything tangible. On his last day at the hospital, he asked for a paper and wrote a bunch of equations that would have hoped him to get near that elusive theory. He didn’t get an inch closer. Not many would do what he did. This was the mark of someone who loved to do what he did.
My admiration for Einstein has grown by multitudes after reading this book. It helps that the author wrote his story in a brilliant way as he usually does. I don’t have any complaints from the book other than the fact that sometimes it seemed to focus too much on his battles with Quantum Mechanics or Political views towards the latter part. But even though they are sometimes lengthy, they make for a compelling read.