Einstein Lived Here

by Abraham Pais

Abraham Pais's 'Subtle is the Lord...' is the definitive biography of Albert Einstein. Timothy Ferris, in The New York Times Book Review , called it "the biography of Einstein he himself would have liked best," adding that "it is a work against which future scientific biographies will be
measured." As a respected physicist himself, Pais was the first biographer to give Einstein's thinking its full due, and as a close friend and associate of Einstein, he could provide an intimate, first-hand account of the life of this great scientist. The result was a national bestseller. Indeed, it
was one of The New York Times 's Best Books of the Year, and the winner of the 1983 American Book Award for Science.
Now, Pais turns his attention to the great physicist's life outside of science, with an informal, almost kalaidoscopic portrait of Einstein--his personal life and his public persona ("my mythical namesake who has made my life so burdensome"), his scientific contributions, and his thoughts on
religion, philosophy, and politics, on Israel and Zionism, on the rise of Nazism and McCarthyism, and on much more. Pais offers a candid look at Einstein's troubled personal life--his two failed marriages, his first child Lieserl, who was born out of wedlock (and of whom all trace has vanished), his
estranged son Hans Albert, also a scientist, who felt his father had abandoned the family, and his son Eduard, who gradually descended into madness. Of course, any book on Einstein must touch upon science, and Pais includes several illuminating chapters, one of which offers general readers an
accessible explanation of relativity, and another traces the long road to Einstein's Nobel Prize (after being nominated almost every year from 1909 to 1920, he finally won in 1921--not for relativity, but for his work on the photoelectric effect). On the lighter side, Pais includes samples from
Einstein's "curiosity file," in which he kept crank letters, marriage proposals, hate mail (one began "You are the prince of idiocy, the count of imbecility, the duke of cretinism, the baron of morons"), and the like. But the heart of the book is the final section, where Pais traces Einstein's life
as seen through the media. Here we not only meet Einstein the living legend--receiving the keys to New York City from flamboyant Mayor Jimmy Walker, attending the Hollywood premier of City Lights with Charlie Chaplin--but also witness his extensive involvement in the issues of his day. Much of his
commentary is amazingly prescient. In 1933, he said of "I cannot understand the passive response of the whole civilized world to this modern barbarism. Does the world not see that Hitler is aiming for war?"
"I can still see Einstein's smile before me," the great physicist Niels Bohr said several years after Einstein's death, "a very special smile...knowing, humane, and friendly." In Einstein Lived Here , this more than anything else is the Einstein we see--knowing, humane, friendly--a world figure on
a par with the greats of his age who could still ask "Why is it that nobody understands me and everybody likes me."

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Physics, History Of Science, Science

282 pages, Hardcover

First published May 12, 1994

About the author

Abraham Pais was a physicist, specialising in particle physics, who became a well-known science historian later in life, having worked closely with prominent scientists such as Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein.

Reviews

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a cradle-to-the-grave biography, these pages contain the genius as a heap of fragments. This is Einstein the public figure, seen in the wild, glimpsed at through what he said and what others said about him. Maybe not the most satisfying reading experience with all its start-stops and snapbacks, but undeniably an evocative and charming one, like being talked at by the great man. As it came to an end, I felt something like bereavement.

[Jeff Clausen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually 3.5 stars for me, but that’s not really a reflection on the quality of the book, more a reflection of my ability to handle chapters crammed with physics principles, along with chapters delving deeply into Jewish politics. Both topics challenge my attention span. Much of the book, however, deals with Einstein the husband, the father, the friend, and my humanist side firmly enjoys this part of the great man. And much of this volume is also given over to long quotes from Einstein’s writing and speeches, which shows a fabulous style and conciseness. If I ever run across any prose from this Nobel Prize winner, it may also have been worthy of a Pulitzer Prize, he wrote that well.

[Patricia Sigaki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ótima leitura que apresenta aspectos da vida de Einstein (não só sobre a carreira, mas a posição dele em relação a assuntos diversos, que provavelmente a maioria das pessoas já refletiram a respeito e tenham uma opinião), fazendo com que o leitor consiga se identificar (ou não) com o físico. Também cita aspectos técnicos do trabalho de Einstein, bem interessante para quem gosta do assunto, talvez não muito para quem não seja de uma área relacionada (mas acho que mesmo nesse último caso, a leitura vale a pena).

O único porém é que a versão em Português tem vários erros ortográficos ou de tradução (palavras colocadas na mesma ordem que em Inglês ou que não fazem sentido no contexto, mas pensando na palavra em Inglês, com outra tradução, faria sentido, etc). Mas nada que atrapalhe a leitura.

[Michael Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-referenced odds and ends about Einstein's life -- his marriages, how he got the Nobel prize for something other than relativity, his relationship with Bohr, the press, etc. Interesting for the most part, well-written, but rather dry and some of the chapters interested me not at all.