Einstein: His Life and Universe Book Review
Review: 5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I ended up reading this book shortly after watching the movie Oppenheimer. Since I was curious as to what Einsteins involvement with the atomic bomb was.
Apparently he played a much bigger role in trying to prevent its proliferation later on, than he did with actively aiding in its production. However, he did play a key role in persuading Roosevelt to pursue its development. Even if he never put a hammer to the weapon itself.
From my perspective, Einstein was largely a rebel for a good portion of his life. Shunning the school system, rubbing professors the wrong way during his youth, and generally forging his own path through life. I think without these characteristics though, he would have never found the strength within himself to come up with so many novel ideas and concepts.
This is especially true considering he had the audacity to challenge Newtons ideas on gravity, and come out on top. I believe that there comes a time when the student must challenge the master. In Einstein’s case, the men who he was trying to disprove were long dead. Washed beneath the waves of history as he sought to reimagine the theories they’d proven as truth.
One of the things I found most facinating was how he got along with his first wife, Mileva Marić. A physicist herself, it seemed to me that she held a rather strong envy towards Einstein. She felt that he was able to talk to and be around all these people of consequence, while she stayed home looking after the kids. I had empathy for her plight though. If I were placed in the same position, I’d be less than happy with my marriage as well.
Overall, I found Einstein’s life to be rather sad in some ways. He endured humiliation as a youth for being Jewish in Germany. Eventually fled his homeland, and lived out the rest of his life as an intellecutal in the United States.
Something that really stood out to me more than many other things, was his astonishment at becoming an authority. He’d spent all that time rebelling against the system. Just to eventually be held up, and in many ways… worshipped by it.
At Princeton, my sister often tells me that there’s a, “Ghost of Einstein” that sort of creeps through the hallways. That is to say, people have a sort of reverence for the man in a sort of, “Einstein went here… Now I’m going here,” kind of way. She thinks it’s weird, and I think Einstein would think it to be weird too.
Hello! We’re D.J. Hoskins
We are Davena and Jason Hoskins, co-authors of 30+ books and siblings who write under the pseudonym D.J. Hoskins. Three years apart and in our twenties, we have been fascinated by stories from a young age. Davena is a student attending Princeton University, and Jason attends Georgetown University.
