Reviews for Einstein's Mistakes: The Human Failings of Genius

The average rating for Einstein's Mistakes: The Human Failings of Genius based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-05-21 00:00:00 FREDDIE Bradley Albert Einstein was a genius. Time after time, he made theoretical leaps and discoveries that were decades ahead of the work his contemporaries were doing. He also made some colossal, amazingly bone-headed errors. In fact, according to Dr. Ohanian, a physicist himself, out of 180 scientific papers published by Einstein over his lifetime, a full 40 of them had mistakes, some of which were trifling, but many of which were significant. 40 out of 180 - that's almost a quarter of his output! Not only that, but his doctoral dissertation alone had over thirty math errors. If the greatest physicist of the 20th-century (and the second-greatest of all time, after only Sir Isaac Newton) can mess up that frequently and still be lauded as a genius, I figure a few mistakes here and there aren't going to kill me, either. Interestingly, Einstein didn't consider intelligence or hard work to be his most important asset. His stubborness got top billing, instead. "He felt that the task of a scientist is to find the most important question, and then to pursue it relentlessly." But Einstein also had what Dr. Ohanian calls "a remarkable talent for making fruitful mistakes." His intuition frequently, but not always, guided him to correct conclusions, in spite of his "botched" mathematical reasoning. Some of these mistakes led directly to the discoveries Einstein is best known for: his theories of special and of general relativity. (One quick note: in physics, as in most scientific fields, the word "theory" doesn't mean "opinion" or "conjecture" as it does in everyday usage. Rather, in this setting, the word "theory" is equivalent to "explanation.") I was most surprised to discover that Einstein was not very comfortable using math as a basis or proof of his proposed theories; and he made many errors in the mathematical portions of his papers. Whenever he could, he'd partner with another physicist or a mathematician whose job it was to write the part of his papers that involved calculations - and in his later years, he employed assistants for the sole purpose of performing the complex mathematics his work required. Unfortunately, these partners or assistants often were denied the credit due to them, either by deliberate omission, or simply because the name "Einstein" overshadowed any other attached to a project. Dr. Ohanian has a talent, too, of explaining complex scientific theories in a way that is understandable for the layperson. I appreciated his analogy comparing mass and energy to ice and water. First, in relation to possibly the most famous equation associated with Einstein, E = mc2 [that '2' should be in a superscript, but I don't know how to do that here], he explains that "mass is a congealed form of energy, or an inactive form of energy" or, in other words, "mass and energy are two facets of the same thing." Then he provides this image: "We can think of the congealed energy hidden in the mass of a body as analogous to the congealed water locked in the Antarctic ice sheet, and we can think of the liquid water on the Earth as analogous to the ordinary energy." He goes on to provide more detail about, for example, the "dramatic and violent" effects we would see if a great deal of congealed energy - mass - was released at once; similar to the "disastrous flooding of all the coasts" that would happen if all the congealed water - ice - in the Antarctic were released simultaneously. Great visual, isn't it? Einstein once said, "We all must from time to time make a sacrifice at the altar of stupidity, for the entertainment of the deity and mankind." It's affirming to know that a stubborn, arrogant genius like Einstein recognized the inevitably and necessity of the occasional error. Perhaps I can be a bit more welcoming and gentle with my own mistakes, too. For more book reviews, come visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-04-02 00:00:00 Marcus Arianas Based on the description, I was excited to read this book because I thought it was going to focus on Einstein's thought process. Wouldn't that be great -- not just a description of the final form of Einstein's discovery but a in-depth description of the path he took to get there, describing both the insights and the wrong turns along the way. The book does do some of that, which is why I'm giving it a positive rating. However the author also spends a lot of time delving into Einstein's failings in his personal life, as a husband, as a father, and so forth. Also the author spends a lot of time on things that aren't failings but that tend to undercut Einstein's accomplishments, like constantly pointing out that other physicists were working on the same topics and understood some concepts better than Einstein. The overall impression is that the book's goal is to take Einstein down a peg, and it leaves rather a sour taste in the mouth.