Einstein

Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author of biographies of Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He is a professor of history at Tulane and was CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu.

By the author of the acclaimed bestsellers Benjamin Franklin and Steve Jobs, this is the definitive biography of Albert Einstein.

How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Isaacson's biography shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the rebellious nature of his personality. His fascinating story is a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom.

Based on newly released personal letters of Einstein, this book explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk-a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn't get a teaching job or a doctorate-became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom, and the universe. His success came from questioning conventional wisdom and marveling at mysteries that struck others as mundane. This led him to embrace a morality and politics based on respect for free minds, free spirits, and free individuals.

These traits are just as vital for this new century of globalization, in which our success will depend on our creativity, as they were for the beginning of the last century, when Einstein helped usher in the modern age.

A narrative portrait based on the complete body of Einstein's papers offers insight into how the iconic thinker's mind worked as well as his contributions to science, in an account that describes his two marriages, his receipt of the Nobel Prize, and the influence of his discoveries on his personal views about morality, politics, and tolerance.

Main Characters
The Light-Beam Rider
Childhood, 1879--1896
The Zurich Polytechnic, 1896-1900
The Lovers, 1900-1904
The Miracle Year: Quanta and Molecules, 1905
Special Relativity, 1905
The Happiest Thought, 1906-1909
The Wandering Professor, 1909-1914
General Relativity, 1911-1915
Divorce, 1916-1919
Einstein's Universe, 1916-1919
Fame, 1919
The Wandering Zionist, 1920-1921
Nobel Laureate, 1921-1927
Unified Field Theories, 1923-1931
Turning Fifty, 1929-1931
Einstein's God
The Refugee, 1932-1933
America, 1933-1939
Quantum Entanglement, 1935
The Bomb, 1939-1945
One-Worlder, 1945-1948
Landmark, 1948-1953
Red Scare, 1951-1954
Epilogue Einstein's Brain and Einsteins Mind
The End, 1955
Sources
Notes
Index