Genius: A Photobiography of Albert Einstein (Photobiographies)

Contrary to rumors that persist to this day, young Albert Einstein was not a poor student (pg. 12). A letter written by Pauline to her mother in 1886 noted with pride, “Yesterday Albert got his grades, once again he was ranked first, he got a splendid report card.” In 1896, 17-year-old Einstein graduated from the high school in Aarau with high marks and was accepted at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Einstein wrote a research article on the theory of liquids that was published in the German scientific journal “Annalen der Physik” in 1901. Max Planck was an Editor of “Annalen der Physik” from 1895-1943. (Einstein-basher Roger Schlafly is not a good source.)Einstein credited Galileo, Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz for laying the foundations on which he built his special theory of relativity (pg. 27). Einstein never was able to accept quantum mechanics, unlike Niels Bohr and J.R. Oppenheimer (pg. 47). Henri Poincaré, Olinto De Pretto, Georges Lemaître, Philipp Lenard, Heinrich Hertz, and Wernher von Braun are not mentioned in this book.Einstein was in favor of Socialism and critical of Capitalism, which he detailed in his essays. Einstein stated that he believed in the pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza (Rebecca Goldstein wrote “Betraying Spinoza”). Einstein did not believe in a personal God who concerns himself with fates and actions of humans. As a member of the American Humanist Association, Einstein called himself an Agnostic once. The FBI banned Einstein from the atomic bomb/Manhattan Project (pg. 54). The FBI created a secret dossier on Einstein in 1932 and by 1955 his file was over 1,400 pages long. Einstein spoke out against HUAC and Senator Joseph McCarthy (pg. 56).

Genius, was an excellent biography of Albert Einstein, talking all about his life. Starting from when he was born, the book takes the reader on a journey, through his schooling, his research, coming to America, all the way till his death. The book also explains his major scientific discoveries, like his theory of relativity winning him the Nobel Prize, and the unified field theory he tried to figure out. This book has a lot of information, but is a very quick read. Overall, it is a great book.

I ordered this book for my mentally challenged son, hoping it would be simple enough for him to grasp, and it fulfilled my hopes very well. It's simple, yet comprehensive, and the photographs are superb.

The book has missing pages. This is a big disappointment as I have paid a large amount and only realised that it was a faulty book once I started using it.