Einstein and Oppenheimer: The Meaning of Genius Book

One of my favorite picture books that I saved from childhood is called Albert Einstein by Ibi Lepscky. It's the story of Albert as a child, showing him as quiet and absentminded, and preferring to play the violin rather than roughhouse with other boys in the neighborhood. It also tells the story of when Albert had a fever and had to stay in bed, his father gave him a compass. Albert became fascinated by the needle and asked so many thoughtful questions about the magnetic fields and the poles of the earth that his father, who could not answer them all, realized how smart his son was.

"Albert was indeed a child different from all others. His gaze, which everyone thought to be absentminded, really reflected a very busy mind, a mind that was exploring places where nobody else could follow. It was the mind of a genius."



My mother, who was a mathematics professor and who was quite smart herself, gave me this book and frequently read it with me. It inspired in me a deep awe for Albert Einstein, one that has carried through to adulthood.

Walter Isaacson seems to have the same reverence for Einstein ' there is an underlying fondness and admiration in this biography. "His tale encompasses the vast sweep of modern science, from the infinitesimal to the infinite, from the emission of photons to the expansion of the cosmos. A century after his great triumphs, we are still living in Einstein's universe ... His fingerprints are all over today's technologies. Photoelectric cells and lasers, nuclear power and fiber optics, space travel, and even semiconductors all trace back to his theories. He signed the letter to Franklin Roosevelt warning that it may be possible to build an atom bomb, and the letters of his famed equation relating energy to mass hover in our minds when we picture the resulting mushroom cloud."

At more than 600 pages, the book covers Einstein's entire life, with an emphasis on his "miracle year" of 1905, and his activities during both world wars. There isn't a lot about his childhood in Germany, but I was happy to see there was some truth in the story of his father bringing him a compass when he was sick in bed.


He later recalled being so excited as he examined its mysterious powers that he trembled and grew cold. The fact that the magnetic needle behaved as if influenced by some hidden force field, rather than through the more familiar mechanical method involving touch or contact, produced a sense of wonder that motivated him throughout his life. "I can still remember that this experience made a deep and lasting impression on me ... Something deeply hidden had to be behind things."

After being mesmerized by the compass needle's fealty to an unseen field, Einstein would develop a lifelong devotion to field theories as a way to describe nature.


Now before I wax too rhapsodic about this book, I need to warn my fellow readers that there is some serious physics-speak in here. I was listening to this on audio (read by the wonderful actor Edward Herrmann) and the chapters that discussed Einstein's scientific theories were difficult to follow. Fortunately, those confusing sections did not overwhelm the book, and there were plenty of interesting biographical details to share. Here are some of my favorites:


"Among the many surprising things about the life of Albert Einstein was the trouble he had getting an academic job. Indeed, it would be an astonishing nine years after his graduation from the Zurich Polytechnic in 1900 ' and four years after the miracle year in which he not only upended physics but also finally got a doctoral dissertation accepted ' before he would be offered a job as a junior professor."

Einstein and his first wife, Mileva Maric, had a daughter named Lieserl, who was born out of wedlock and was purportedly given up for adoption. "Einstein did not tell his mother, sister, or any of his friends about the birth of Lieserl. In fact, there is no indication that he ever told them about her. Never once did he publicly speak of her or acknowledge that she even existed. No mention of her survives in any correspondence, except for a few letters between Einstein and Maric, and these were suppressed and hidden until 1986, when scholars and the editors of his papers were completely surprised to learn of Lieserl's existence." [It is not known what happened to Lieserl.]

The old line that Einstein did his best work when he was working as a Swiss patent clerk is true. "He soon learned that he could work on the patent applications so quickly that it left time for him to sneak in his own scientific thinking during the day. 'I was able to do a full day's work in only two or three hours ... The remaining part of the day, I would work on my own ideas ... Whenever anybody would come by, I would cram my notes into my desk drawer and pretend to work on my office work.'"

"Einstein's 1905 burst of creativity was astonishing. He had devised a revolutionary quantum theory of light, helped prove the existence of atoms, explained Brownian motion, upended the concept of space and time, and produced what would become science's best known equation. But many people seemed not to notice at first. According to his sister, Einstein had hoped that his flurry of essays in a preeminent journal would lift him from the obscurity of a third-class patent examiner and provide some academic recognition, perhaps even an academic job. 'But he was bitterly disappointed,' she noted. 'Icy silence followed the publication.'" [He soon got his fame and recognition.]

With the outbreak of war, Einstein had become, for the first time, an outspoken public figure, advocating internationalism, European federalism, and resistance to militarism ... The chain reaction that pushed Europe into war in August 1914 inflamed the patriotic pride of the Prussians and, in an equal and opposite reaction, the visceral pacifism of Einstein, a man so gentle and averse to conflict that he even disliked playing chess. "Europe in its madness has now embarked on something incredibly preposterous ... At such times one sees to what deplorable breed of brutes we belong."

Throughout his life, Einstein would sometimes appear aloof toward his sons, especially Eduard, who suffered from increasingly severe mental illness as he grew older. But when they were young, he tended to be a good father. "When my mother was busy around the house, father would put aside his work and watch over us for hours, bouncing us on his knee," Hans Albert later recalled. "I remember he would tell us stories ' and he often played the violin in an effort to keep us quiet."

Einstein's first marriage was an unhappy one, and to convince Mileva to divorce him, he promised her his money from the Nobel Prize, which he was convinced he would someday win. She finally agreed to a divorce settlement, and Einstein was awarded the Nobel in 1921.

Einstein's theory of relativity burst into the consciousness of a world that was weary of war and yearning for triumph of human transcendence. Almost a year to the day after the end of the brutal fighting, here was an announcement that the theory of a German Jew had been proven correct by an English Quaker [Arthur Eddington]. "Scientists belonging to two warring nations had collaborated again!" exulted the physicist Leopold Infeld. "It seemed the beginning of a new era."

Einstein's second wife was a cousin he had known since childhood, Elsa Einstein. He wrote her passionate letters, saying: "I have to have someone to love, otherwise life is miserable. And this someone is you."

The rise of German anti-Semitism after World War I produced a counterreaction in Einstein: it made him identify more strongly with his Jewish heritage and community ... Eventually, Einstein came around to the cause [of Zionism]. "I am, as a human being, an opponent of nationalism," he declared. "But as a Jew, I am from today a supporter of the Zionist effort."

Einstein was visiting the United States when Hitler took power, and he realized he could not return to his home country. "Because of Hitler, I don't dare step on German soil."

What happened in Germany in 1933 was not just a brutality perpetrated by thuggish leaders and abetted by ignorant mobs. It was also, as Einstein described, "the utter failure of the so-called intellectual aristocracy." Einstein and other Jews were ousted from what had been among the world's greatest citadels of open-minded inquiry, and those who remained did little to resist.

Einstein eventually settled in Princeton, New Jersey, and would spend the rest of his life there. He was given a corner office in a university hall, and was asked what equipment he needed. "A desk or table, a chair, paper and pencils. Oh yes, and a large wastebasket, so I can throw away all my mistakes."

[At Princeton] Einstein soon acquired an image, which grew into a near legend but was nevertheless based on reality, of being a kindly and gentle professor, distracted at times but unfailingly sweet, who wandered about lost in thought, helped children with their homework, and rarely combed his hair or wore socks. "I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don't have to," he told a neighbor.

Occasionally, he would take rambling walks on his own, which could be dicey. One day someone called the Institute and asked to speak to a particular dean. When his secretary said that the dean wasn't available, the caller hesitantly asked for Einstein's home address. That was not possible to give out, he was informed. The caller's voice then dropped to a whisper. "Please don't tell anybody," he said, "but I am Dr. Einstein, I'm on my way home, and I've forgotten where my house is."

When he first arrived in Princeton, Einstein had been impressed that America was, or could be, a land free of the rigid class hierarchies and servility in Europe. But what grew to impress him more ' and what made him fundamentally such a good American but also a controversial one ' was the country's tolerance of free thought, free speech, and nonconformist beliefs. That had been a touchstone of his science, and now it was a touchstone of his citizenship.

In one of his most revealing remarks about himself, Einstein lamented, "To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate has made me an authority myself."

[After learning that the Nazis has raided his house in Germany, he made a prescient comment.] "If and when war comes, Hitler will realize the harm he has done Germany by driving out the Jewish scientists."

Einstein later regretted his role in the development of nuclear weapons. "Had I known that the Germans would not have succeeded in producing an atomic bomb, I never would have lifted a finger."

At the end of the 1940s, when it was becoming clear to him that the effort to control nuclear weaponry would fail, Einstein was asked what the next war would look like. "I do not know how the Third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth ' rocks."



Einstein walking on Princeton's campus

There are so many more interesting stories and details in this book, and I went through dozens of Post-Its to mark passages. This is the second book by Walter Isaacson I've read, the other being Steve Jobs, and he is a talented writer and biographer. I especially appreciate his skill at weaving quotes and anecdotes into the narrative. For example, this is a typically elegant and amusing paragraph from Isaacson:


Einstein's new marriage was different from his first. It was not romantic or passionate. From the start, he and Elsa had separate bedrooms at opposite ends of their rambling Berlin apartment. Nor was it intellectual. Understanding relativity, she later said, "is not necessary for my happiness."


Even though I listened to an audiobook, I was happy I had requested a print copy from the library to peruse, because the book is filled with charming photographs of Einstein. His eyes could positively twinkle, and that shock of hair was rarely tamed. I really enjoyed most of this book, and if I had been more studious and applied myself, I probably could have made better sense of the heavy chapters on physics. But there is a reason I ended up in the humanities and not the sciences, and I shall continue to admire Mr. Einstein's work from a distance.

Favorite Quotes:
"When I am judging a theory, I ask myself whether, if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way."

"I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious."