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"What Bodanis does brilliantly is to give us a feel for Einstein as a person. I don't think I've ever read a book that does this as well . . . Whenever there's a chance for storytelling, Bodanis triumphs." --Popular Science "Fascinating." --Forbes Widely considered the greatest genius of all time, Albert Einstein revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos with his general theory of relativity and helped lead us into the atomic age. Yet in the final decades of his life, he was ignored by most working scientists, and his ideas were opposed by even his closest friends. How did this happen?
Best-selling biographer David Bodanis traces the arc of Einstein's life--from the skeptical, erratic student to the world's most brilliant physicist to the fallen-from-grace celebrity. An intimate biography in which "theories of the universe morph into theories of life" (Times, London), Einstein's Greatest Mistake reveals what we owe Einstein today--and how much more he might have achieved if not for his all-too-human flaws.
About the author
DAVID BODANIS studied mathematics, physics, and history at the University of Chicago, and for many years taught the "Intellectual Tool-Kit" course at Oxford University. The author of many books—including the New York Times bestseller The Secret House and E=mc2, which was adapted into the PBS NOVA documentary Einstein’s Big Idea—he is also a futurist and business advisor who has worked for the Royal Dutch Shell Scenario Prediction unit, modelling economic futures, as well as for the future planning unit at the World Economic Forum. He has been a popular speaker at TED conferences and at Davos, and most recently helped run an international study for the UK Treasury on the future of high-frequency trading. Bodanis’s work has been published in the Financial Times, the Guardian, and the New York Times. He lives in London.
Summary
“What Bodanis does brilliantly is to give us a feel for Einstein as a person. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that does this as well . . . Whenever there’s a chance for storytelling, Bodanis triumphs.” —Popular Science
“Fascinating.” —Forbes
Widely considered the greatest genius of all time, Albert Einstein revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos with his general theory of relativity and helped lead us into the atomic age. Yet in the final decades of his life, he was ignored by most working scientists, and his ideas were opposed by even his closest friends. How did this happen? Best-selling biographer David Bodanis traces the arc of Einstein’s life—from the skeptical, erratic student to the world’s most brilliant physicist to the fallen-from-grace celebrity. An intimate biography in which “theories of the universe morph into theories of life” (Times, London), Einstein’s Greatest Mistake reveals what we owe Einstein today—and how much more he might have achieved if not for his all-too-human flaws.
