Theory of Relativity, Astronomers & Astrophysicists - Biography, Physicists - Biography, Cosmology

Einstein (en Español)

Name: Einstein (en Español)
Author: Walter Isaacson
ISBN: 9788499080130

by Walter Isaacson

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Overview

In the first full biography of Albert Einstein written with access to all his files, Walter Isaacson achieved an extraordinary portrait of the character and his time, and a fascinating account of his life.

Albert Einstein is one of the most important scientists in history and an icon of the twentieth century. How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Who was the man behind the public persona? In the first full biography of Albert Einstein written with access to all his files, Walter Isaacson achieves an extraordinary portrait of the character and the life and time of Albert Einstein. From private correspondence of Einstein, Isaacson tells how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk (who was also a bad father with a complicated marriage, unable to get a job in college or a doctorate) was able to unlock the secrets of the cosmos and understand the mysteries of the atom and the universe. His creativity was linked to his rebellion, and his success was based on questioning accepted truths and marvel at what others considered mundane issues, and his fascinating story demonstrates the relationship between the creative mind and free thinking.

Synopsis

En la primera biografía completa de Albert Einstein escrita con acceso a todos sus archivos, Walter Isaacson logra un extraordinario retrato del personaje y de su época y un fascinante relato de su vida. Albert Einstein es uno de los científicos más importantes de la historia y un icono del siglo XX.¿Cómo funcionaba su mente?¿Qué le hizo un genio?¿Cómo era el ser humano detrás del personaje público? En la primera biografía completa de Albert Einstein escrita con acceso a todos sus archivos, Walter Isaacson logra un extraordinario retrato del personaje y de su época y un fascinante relato de su vida. A partir de la correspondencia privada de Einstein, Isaacson cuenta cómo un funcionario de patentes imaginativo e impertinente (un mal padre con un matrimonio complicado, incapaz de conseguir un empleo en la universidad ni un doctorado) fue capaz de desvelar los secretos del cosmos y comprender los misterios del átomo y del universo. Su creatividad estaba ligada a su rebeldía, y su éxito se basó en cuestionar las verdades aceptadas y en asombrarse ante cuestiones que otros consideraban mundanas. Así llegó a una moral y unas ideas políticas que pasaban por el respeto a las mentes libres, los espíritus libres y los individuos libres. Su fascinante historia demuestra la relación entre creatividad y libertad. «Espléndida, un gran trabajo de investigación con mucho material inédito. Una obra fundamental y definitiva.» Amir D. Aczel, The Boston Globe In the first full biography of Albert Einstein written with access to all his files, Walter Isaacson achieved an extraordinary portrait of the character and his time, and a fascinating account of his life. Albert Einstein is one of the most important scientists in history and an icon of the twentieth century. How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Who was the man behind the public persona? In the first full biography of Albert Einstein written with access to all his files, Walter Isaacson achieves an extraordinary portrait of the character and the life and time of Albert Einstein. From private correspondence of Einstein, Isaacson tells how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk (who was also a bad father with a complicated marriage, unable to get a job in college or a doctorate) was able to unlock the secrets of the cosmos and understand the mysteries of the atom and the universe. His creativity was linked to his rebellion, and his success was based on questioning accepted truths and marvel at what others considered mundane issues, and his fascinating story demonstrates the relationship between the creative mind and free thinking.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

The Boston Globe In the first full biography of Albert Einstein written with access to all his files, Walter Isaacson achieved an extraordinary portrait of the character and his time, and a fascinating account of his life. Albert Einstein is one of the most important scientists in history and an icon of the twentieth century. How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Who was the man behind the public persona? In the first full biography of Albert Einstein written with access to all his files, Walter Isaacson achieves an extraordinary portrait of the character and the life and time of Albert Einstein. From private correspondence of Einstein, Isaacson tells how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk (who was also a bad father with a complicated marriage, unable to get a job in college or a doctorate) was able to unlock the secrets of the cosmos and understand the mysteries of the atom and the universe. His creativity was linked to his rebellion, and his success was based on questioning accepted truths and marvel at what others considered mundane issues, and his fascinating story demonstrates the relationship between the creative mind and free thinking."

About the Author, Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson, presidente del Instituto Aspen, ha sido presidente de la CNN y director ejecutivo de la revista Time. Es autor de Einstein, su vida y su universo (Debate, 2008), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life y Kissinger: A Biography, y es coautor, con Evan Thomas, de The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. Vive con su mujer en Washington, D.C.

Walter Isaacson is the CEO of the Aspen Institute, has been chairman of CNN and the managing editor of TIME magazine. He is the author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and of Kissinger: A Biography, and the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and daughter.

Biography

Rhodes Scholar, historian, and bestselling author Walter Isaacson began his distinguished career as a journalist -- first for London's Sunday Times, then for The Times-Picayune/States-Item, published in his hometown of New Orleans. He joined Time magazine in 1978, working his way up from political correspondent to managing editor in a little less than two decades. He served for two years as chairman and CEO of the cable TV news network CNN; then, in 2003, he became president of the Aspen Institute, an international nonprofit organization "dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue." In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he was appointed vice-chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, and he serves on a number of policy-making boards and councils.

In literary circles, Isaacson is best known as the writer of magisterial biographies, scholarly and meticulously researched, yet immensely entertaining. His first book, however, was a collaborative effort. Co-written with award-winning journalist Evan Thomas, and published in 1986, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made explores the lives of six men who shaped government and public policy in the years following WWII. Examining an era too recent to be called history and too distant to qualify as current affairs, the book received mixed reviews but was universally praised for its ambitious scope and elegant style.

Isaacson's subsequent biographies, all solo efforts (and all critically acclaimed), have chronicled the lives of such disparate figures as Henry Kissinger, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He explains what has drawn him to such widely divergent subjects -- men, who on the surface would appear to have very little in common: "I like writing about people with interesting minds. I try to explore the various aspects of intelligence: common sense, wisdom, creativity, imagination, mental processing power, emotional understanding, and moral values. Which of these traits are the most important? How do they make someone an influential or significant or good person?"

Reviews

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

A century after Albert Einstein began postulating his "Big Idea" about time, space, and gravity, a new biography examines the scientist whose public idolization was surpassed only by his legitimacy as one of humanity's greatest thinkers. Walter Isaacson, the author of excellent profiles of Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger, utilizes a trove of material from recently opened Einstein archives to offer a probing look at a provocatively freethinking individual.

Janet Maslin

With the help of many witty, candid letters, Mr. Isaacson offers a wonderfully rounded portrait of the ever-surprising Einstein personality. Equally important is the Einstein myth, and the material on this subject is even more entertaining. Einstein horrified his colleagues by enjoying his vast celebrity. (“Einstein’s personality, for no clear reasons, triggers outbursts of a kind of mass hysteria,” the German consul reported to Berlin as the great man made one of his rock-star visits to New York.) He also stymied the press in its efforts to keep up with his accomplishments. Mr. Isaacson has great fun with the reportorial frenzy that surrounded each new pearl of Einsteinian wisdom … an illuminating delight.
— The New York Times

Michael Dirda

In a famous catchphrase, Einstein couldn't believe that God played with dice, and for decades he kept up the search for a "unified field theory" that would make sense of everything. Einstein: His Life and Universe covers all this and much else in a painstaking and reliable biography. You won't go wrong in reading and learning from it.
— The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

Herrmann's reading offers solid, enjoyable and informative listening. Herrmann knows when his material is strong and does not try to compete with it. Instead, he delivers a straightforward yet endearing portrait of arguably the best mind of the last century. Herrmann keeps the text purely narrative, refraining from affecting a German accent when quoting Einstein and others, with the occasional accent appropriately slipping in only when pronouncing foreign words. In this, the first full biography based on Einstein's newly released personal letters, Isaacson takes care to keep the great mind's discoveries and theories comprehensible. Einstein, whose internally visualized "thought experiments" often led to his groundbreaking observations (at 16 he imagined chasing a light beam until he caught up to it), expressed these images with simplicity and elegance. Einstein's rebellious personality as well as the internal workings of his brilliant mind are brought vividly to life thanks to Herrmann's perfect reading, which is filled with warmth and accuracy. Simultaneous release with the S&S hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 12). (May)

Criticas

Although the author appropriately makes Einstein's extraordinary scientific achievements the center of attention, he also covers his subject's complex and often painful familial relationships, his political interventions and comments, and his remarkable celebrity status (for a scientist) with the American public. Isaacson himself does not have a strong scientific background, but professional specialists in physics and mathematics assisted him effectively. This work, the first full biography of Einstein since all his papers have been made available, is certainly one of the best and most complete Einstein biographies thus far. [LJ2/15/07]

Library Journal

This biography of Albert Einstein (1879-1955) takes a cue from Isaacson's recent success, Benjamin Franklin, and is written for a general audience. Although the author appropriately makes Einstein's extraordinary scientific achievements the center of attention, he also covers his subject's complex and often painful familial relationships, his political interventions and comments, and his remarkable celebrity status (for a scientist) with the American public. Isaacson himself does not have a strong scientific background, but professional specialists in physics and mathematics assisted him effectively. This work, the first full biography of Einstein since all his papers have been made available, is well written and sensibly balanced in its treatment of the famed theoretical physicist, his family, and his friends. Certainly one of the best and most complete Einstein biographies thus far; strongly recommended for public and academic libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ12/06.]
—Jack W. Weigel

Kirkus Reviews

A comprehensive and marvelously readable life of the eminent scientist-and more, the eminent counter-culturalist, rebel, humanist and philanderer. "A century after his great triumphs, we are still living in Einstein's universe," writes Aspen Institute president and former CNN head Isaacson (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, 2003, etc.), "one defined on the macro scale by his theory of relativity and on the micro by a quantum mechanics that has proven durable even as it remains disconcerting to some." Brave enough to tread on such highly specialized ground, and working with newly available archival materials, Isaacson lucidly explains the finer points of Einstein's theories. One, the general theory of relativity, had its birth, Isaacson writes, while Einstein was struggling to write an article on his special theory of relativity; sitting in his office in Bern, where he worked as a patent-examiner, he had the thought, "If a person falls freely, he will not feel his own weight"-"the happiest thought in my life," Einstein recalled-but underlying it is some formidable work in physics and mathematics that took Einstein many subsequent years to express, and Isaacson acquits himself very well in taking readers along some strenuous paths of reasoning. Along with the science, Isaacson gives us an Einstein with whom it might have been fun to enjoy a stein of beer-unless you were married to him, a different story altogether, for by Isaacson's account, Einstein was sufficiently sure of his own genius and the needs it entailed that he refused to be tied down by the ordinary rules applied to husbands and fathers. One daughter he even abandoned without a look back, but this was typical of hisnonconformity, which, Isaacson writes, was characteristic of Einstein until the very end of his life. An exemplary biography, at once sympathetic and unsparing. Readers will admire Einstein's greatness as a thinker, but they will now know that he, like all other idols, had feet of clay. See Jurgen Neffe's Einstein (2007) for more on the subject. First printing of 500,000; first serial to Time