Einstein: The Life and Times

This book is really, really long. I didn't finish it before moving on. But I did learn an awful lot in the 200 pages I read. Mostly, I learned that I'm not a genius, nor will I ever earn a Nobel prize in physics. My initial interest in Einstein, The Life and Times was an awesome NOVA documentary I watched one night on PBS when I should have been sleeping. The documentary, called Einstein's Big Idea, was great because it traced the origins of e=mc2 through all of the scientific discoveries that together laid the foundation for the Einstein's theory. On the website for the documentary (you can get there by clicking HERE) you can check your local listings to see if it's playing any time soon, or you can purchase DVDs of the program. I might just be giving this out as Christmas presents this year. It was that good.

Anyway, while I watched the show, I was googling info about Einstein's life and something caught my attention: after divorcing his first wife (the one who gave up her own career as a physicist to see him through the rough times when they were broke and then raised the babies while he spent a lot of time with his science buddies talking about relativity) he married his second cousin because she nursed him through an illness. So, I simply had to know more about this man, his childhood, and his choices. Unfortunately, I didn't get to the divorce, the second marriage, or his eventual move to Princeton, New Jersey where he taught as a professor for many years. (Can anyone imagine having Einstein as their professor? "I hate Dr. Einstein's lectures. He acts like he's some sort of genius.")

If you're interested in Einstein, and you have at least a basic understanding of physics, I would recommend this book. But don't pick it up if you have only had a year of high school physics, unless you're willing to skip through a lot of mumbo-jumbo that was the most important scientific discovery of the twentieth century.