A review by aqualing
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
4.0
"He was a loner with an intimate bond to humanity, a rebel who was suffused with reverence."
The story of Einstein has always been an inspiring one. You can rarely find another genius who made such impactful contribution yet remained such a modest and humanistic mind. His persistent childlike spirit in pursuing his scientific dream and rational/liberal vision of politics echo with my own philosophy. What had been his essence as a scientist and human being is once again refreshing in a world full of creative trends, narcissism and killing.
However, there is one point made in the book that I absolutely disagree. Despite his failure to find a solution to his so-called unified field theory, contrary to what the book claims, what Einstein tried to do wasn't futile nor illusional. What theoretical physicists have been struggling to achieve in string theory, which rose since the 60s, is a unified Ultimate Theory, M-theory. It will be heavily depending on Riemann's mathematics, which Einstein had been relying upon. And exactly as Einstein had lamented, it's the lack of the perfect mathematical equation(s)-not physical evidence-that deters the climax. I wouldn't say he was exactly on the right track but what he did in the last few decades was definitely not useless. His essential view of the universe has been adopted by string theory. It only proved again his pioneering insight of the law of nature.
The story of Einstein has always been an inspiring one. You can rarely find another genius who made such impactful contribution yet remained such a modest and humanistic mind. His persistent childlike spirit in pursuing his scientific dream and rational/liberal vision of politics echo with my own philosophy. What had been his essence as a scientist and human being is once again refreshing in a world full of creative trends, narcissism and killing.
However, there is one point made in the book that I absolutely disagree. Despite his failure to find a solution to his so-called unified field theory, contrary to what the book claims, what Einstein tried to do wasn't futile nor illusional. What theoretical physicists have been struggling to achieve in string theory, which rose since the 60s, is a unified Ultimate Theory, M-theory. It will be heavily depending on Riemann's mathematics, which Einstein had been relying upon. And exactly as Einstein had lamented, it's the lack of the perfect mathematical equation(s)-not physical evidence-that deters the climax. I wouldn't say he was exactly on the right track but what he did in the last few decades was definitely not useless. His essential view of the universe has been adopted by string theory. It only proved again his pioneering insight of the law of nature.