2011 Chunkster Reading Challenge #3

    It's been awhile since my last entry, and thats because I've been lost inside the labyrinth of a book I've been meaning to read for a few years (not this one, more on that next time), but I'm back and happy to tell you that this book, Einstein: His Life and Universe, was phenomenal, so much so that half way through it I ran out to the library and borrowed The Einstein Theory of Relativity just to add that extra dimension to my experience of this great mind and life.  Written by Walter Issacson, a well respected biographer whose other works include a very well received bio of Benjamin Franklin simply titled Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, this book is an attempt to show a complete Einstein that I found extremely successful.
   The book is written like any other conventional biography, very 'David Copperfield' (Dickens, not magic), 'he was born...' 'he grew up...', and so on.  But, it avoids becoming dry and boring by the virtue of its subject who would grow to become one of the defining personalities of the 20th century, quite literally reshaping not just the world but the universe around us.  First thing we learn is that contrary to popular belief Einstein did NOT fail math as a boy, in fact the first stumble he had was in college with very advanced math (the likes of which most if us have never nor will ever deal with) because he found it dry, bland, and boring, and this was a consistent problem for the rest of his life until his last forays into unifying his two most important theories, those of Quanta and Relativity.
    I think one of the successes of this book is its warmth, partly because of the jovial, sage like, character of Einstein, but also because Issacson didn't dwell in just the man's achievements but on his relationships with family, friends and collaborators.  That's where the book really shines to me, and lends weight to his work as we find that it was his haven from any emotional turmoil or trauma such as the death of his mother or the drama his first marriage devolved into.
    Who Einstein was is far more fascinating to me than his theories.  We find he was perhaps as much philosopher as physicist, who defined elegance as simplicity in both his religion and scientific views.  For instance, when troubled later in life by the uncertainty of prevailing theories including his own 'Quantum Theory', Einstein is quoted as saying 'God does not play dice', which for me conveys just as much of his religious as scientific viewpoints, as he felt the universe was explainable through order only because it was designed that way by its architect.
   Finally, his political views are perhaps the most interesting simply because of the world they were shaped by as a German born jew of the first half of the 20th century.  He had a great antipathy toward any sort of 'Nationalist' movements, including the founding of a 'Jewish' state, or militaristic societies.  He spent the first half of his life as a devout pacifist, going so far as to use his fame to advocate refusal of any military service and draft dodging.  Many, including the F.B.I., believed him a communist for this support of pacifist movements and he was investigated thoroughly racking up a file of over 100 pages, but Einstein had no liking for communism either because he felt its implementation stifled discovery and creative thought.
    Einstein's views on pacifism and his jewish identity (for which he had a great apathy for most of his life, never fully embracing it) evolved for obvious reasons in the late 1930's and early '40's thanks to the ascension of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party going so far as to write a letter to then president Roosevelt about a new sort of bomb.  That letter was the impetus for the 'Manhattan Project', though he was never allowed to be a significant part of it because of security clearance issues thanks to the F.B.I.  This was probably a good thing for Einstein because of how unsettled he was by what he termed the 'whimsical' use of the bomb, and had he been actively a part of it he may have suffered more morally.
    In the end what we're left with is the portrait if an imperfect yet brilliant man with ever evolving political beliefs, a complicated relationship with his religious identity, a perennial non-conformer in all things who was in awe of the world around him and later conflicted by the light his theories cast on that world.  A fantastic look at a brilliant man and his mind.