Customer Reviews
Another Winner
Dennnis Overbye has been blessed with a unique talent - the ability to translated complex scientific theory into language that the thinking reader can understand. In "Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos" we read about the theory and history of cosmology along with the personal travails of one scientist an the bitter infighting among all scientists. In this non-novel novel, we are immersed into the nascent world of relativity. From its theoretical origins [thinking outside the box] we are given a review of classical physics and the theories / illuminations of the greatest scientist of this age.
The scientific story advances within the framework of Einstein's personal life. It is rare that an individual can succeed in all areas of endeavor, be they love, work or play. One feels some disappointment with his personal travails and while he may appear cold or disloyal, many times great people sublimate their relationships to their passion.
Unlike other intellectuals whose personal lives were a total repudiation of the their professed ideology (Marx was an utter slackard, Hellman and Brecht were serial liars, Fuller switched positions with the wind, scolding the world when they began to ignore his newest mania), Einstein never tried to impose a social scheme on others. He loved quietly as one should and made his mistakes in private, again as one should. All in all, a successful work.
An all-too-human genius
In this book Overbye has adroitly blended Einstein's often-difficult personal relationships with the discoveries that made him the most celebrated scientist in a century during which there was no shortage of brilliant scientific minds. All in all, I found it one of the most engagingly-written and informative histories of science I've ever encountered.
One cannot read this work without wondering how the author was able to lay his hands on, and then digest, that mountain of material -- epistolary, journalistic, and geographic. It would appear that he read hundreds and hundreds of letters and visited every locale of importance to Einstein in the first four decades of his life.
I would recommend this book for anyone with an interest in knowing how scientific progress happens. Overbye's thoughfully-constructed and lucid explanations should, moreover, prove of particular value to those whose previous exposure to physics has left them with the desire for a fuller understanding of some of its more complex principles.
For me, not least among this work's plusses was that it attached names that had been little more than textbook entries -- Planck's constant, Wien's law, Bohr atom, Born-Haber cycle, and many others -- to real people. Einstein's universe did, after all, include real people.
Albert consumed with passion
"Einstein in Love" opened a new door to the rich and immensely eventful life of one great scientist, Albert Einstein. It is quite amazing that a whole community of people are, more than before, dedicated to unravelling more about the life of Albert. Overbye's books does a lot to humanise the early years of Albert till around the early 1920s. This is the first book I have read about Albert, and I cannot compare it to other similarly-aimed books, but I can say that Overbye's account, the result of years of research, gives us lots of insight into Albert's personality: the innocence of a person who's first love was science, his numerous romances, his escapades, the Albert-Mileva menagerie, the friends he had. This books say a lot about how Albert went about constructing his view of physics, and how he managed to live in different societies. It is a must read for anyone interested in knowing more about Albert before 1920.
