Download or read book Einstein s Shadow written by Seth Fletcher and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Einstein’s Shadow follows a team of elite scientists on their historic mission to take the first picture of a black hole, putting Einstein’s theory of relativity to its ultimate test and helping to answer our deepest questions about space, time, the origins of the universe, and the nature of reality Photographing a black hole sounds impossible, a contradiction in terms. But Shep Doeleman and a global coalition of scientists are on the cusp of doing just that. With exclusive access to the team, journalist Seth Fletcher spent five years following Shep and an extraordinary cast of characters as they assembled the Event Horizon Telescope, a worldwide network of radio telescopes created to study black holes. He witnessed the team’s struggles, setbacks, and breakthroughs, and, along the way, Fletcher explored the latest thinking on the most profound questions about black holes: Do they represent a limit to our ability to understand reality? Or will they reveal the clues that lead to the long-sought theory of everything? Fletcher transforms astrophysics into something exciting, accessible, and immediate, taking us on an incredible adventure to better understand the complexity of our galaxy, the boundaries of human perception and knowledge, and how the messy endeavor of science really works. Weaving a compelling narrative account of human ingenuity with excursions into cutting-edge science, Einstein’s Shadow is a tale of great minds on a mission to change the way we understand our universe—and our place in it.
Download or read book In Albert s Shadow written by Mileva Einstein-Marić and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through previously unpublished letters written to her best friend over 30 years, this collection offers an intimate portrait of Einstein's first wife and a troubled marriage that ended in divorce and depression.
Download or read book No Shadow of a Doubt written by Daniel Kennefick and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On their 100th anniversary, the story of the extraordinary scientific expeditions that ushered in the era of relativity In 1919, British scientists led extraordinary expeditions to Brazil and Africa to test Albert Einstein's revolutionary new theory of general relativity in what became the century's most celebrated scientific experiment. The result ushered in a new era and made Einstein a global celebrity by confirming his dramatic prediction that the path of light rays would be bent by gravity. Today, Einstein's theory is scientific fact. Yet the effort to weigh light by measuring the gravitational deflection of starlight during the May 29, 1919, solar eclipse has become clouded by myth and skepticism. Could Arthur Eddington and Frank Dyson have gotten the results they claimed? Did the pacifist Eddington falsify evidence to foster peace after a horrific war by validating the theory of a German antiwar campaigner? In No Shadow of a Doubt, Daniel Kennefick provides definitive answers by offering the most comprehensive and authoritative account of how expedition scientists overcame war, bad weather, and equipment problems to make the experiment a triumphant success. The reader follows Eddington on his voyage to Africa through his letters home, and delves with Dyson into how the complex experiment was accomplished, through his notes. Other characters include Howard Grubb, the brilliant Irishman who made the instruments; William Campbell, the American astronomer who confirmed the result; and Erwin Findlay-Freundlich, the German whose attempts to perform the test in Crimea were foiled by clouds and his arrest. By chronicling the expeditions and their enormous impact in greater detail than ever before, No Shadow of a Doubt reveals a story that is even richer and more exciting than previously known.
Download or read book The Other Einstein written by Marie Benedict and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From beloved New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Marie Benedict comes the story of a not-so-famous scientist who not only loved Albert Einstein, but also shaped the theories that brought him lasting renown. In the tradition of Beatriz Williams and Paula McClain, Marie Benedict's The Other Einstein offers us a window into a brilliant, fascinating woman whose light was lost in Einstein's enormous shadow. This novel resurrects Einstein's wife, a brilliant physicist in her own right, whose contribution to the special theory of relativity is hotly debated. Was she simply Einstein's sounding board, an assistant performing complex mathematical equations? Or did she contribute something more? Mitza Maric has always been a little different from other girls. Most twenty-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitza is smart enough to know that, for her, math is an easier path than marriage. Then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage. Marie Benedict illuminates one pioneering woman in STEM, returning her to the forefront of history's most famous scientists. "The Other Einstein takes you into Mileva's heart, mind, and study as she tries to forge a place for herself in a scientific world dominated by men."—Bustle Recommended by PopSugar, Bustle, Booklist, Library Journal and more! Other Bestselling Historical Fiction from Marie Benedict: The Mystery of Mrs. Christie The Only Woman in the Room Lady Clementine Carnegie's Maid
Download or read book Einstein s Wife written by Allen Esterson and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The real-life story behind Marie Benedict’s The Other Einstein—a fascinating profile of mathematician Mileva Einstein-Marić and her contributions to her husband’s scientific discoveries. Albert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Einstein-Marić, was forgotten for decades. When a trove of correspondence between them beginning in their student days was discovered in 1986, her story began to be told. Some of the tellers of the “Mileva Story” made startling claims: that she was a brilliant mathematician who surpassed her husband, and that she made uncredited contributions to his most celebrated papers in 1905, including his paper on special relativity. This book, based on extensive historical research, uncovers the real “Mileva Story.” Mileva was one of the few women of her era to pursue higher education in science; she and Einstein were students together at the Zurich Polytechnic. Mileva’s ambitions for a science career, however, suffered a series of setbacks—failed diploma examinations, a disagreement with her doctoral dissertation adviser, an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Einstein. She and Einstein married in 1903 and had two sons, but the marriage failed. So was Mileva her husband’s uncredited coauthor, unpaid assistant, or his essential helpmeet? It’s tempting to believe that she was her husband’s secret collaborator, but the authors of Einstein's Wife look at the actual evidence, and a chapter by Ruth Lewin Sime offers important historical context. The story they tell is that of a brave and determined young woman who struggled against a variety of obstacles at a time when science was not very welcoming to women. Given the barriers women in science still face, [Mileva’s] story remains relevant.” —Washington Post
Download or read book Women in the Shadows written by Ch. S. Chiu and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2008 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women in the Shadows discusses the biographies of five brilliant and talented women born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire: Mileva Einstein-Maric, Margarete Jeanne Trakl, Lise Meitner, Milena Jesenská, and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. Charles S. Chiu creates «a narrative against forgetting, as a small step out of darkness» by writing about these women's accomplishments, which were overshadowed by those of the famous men in their lives. Edith Borchardt's translation brings this narrative to a wider audience. Women in the Shadows will interest scientists and scholars in the humanities as well as the general reader. The women portrayed represent various fields - mathematics, physics, music and literature, journalism, and architecture - making Women in the Shadows suitable for courses on the history of science, German and Austrian studies, as well as women's studies.
Download or read book Einstein written by Jim Ottaviani and published by First Second. This book was released on 2022-11-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Einstein, writer Jim Ottaviani and artist Jerel Dye take us behind the veneer of Einstein’s celebrity, painting a complex and intimate portrait of the world’s most well-known scientist. E = mc2 A world-changing equation and a wild head of hair are all most of us know about one of history’s greatest minds, despite his being a household name in his lifetime and an icon in ours. But while the broad outlines of what Einstein did are well known, who he was remained hidden from view to most...even his closest friends. This is the story of a scientist who made many mistakes, and even when he wanted to be proven wrong, was often right in the end. It's a story of a humanist who struggled to connect with people. And it's a story of a reluctant revolutionary who paid a high price for living with a single dream. In Einstein, Jim Ottaviani and Jerel Dye take us behind the veneer of celebrity, painting a complex and intimate portrait of the scientist whose name has become another word for genius.
Download or read book Einstein for the 21st Century written by Peter L. Galison and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than fifty years after his death, Albert Einstein's vital engagement with the world continues to inspire others, spurring conversations, projects, and research, in the sciences as well as the humanities. Einstein for the 21st Century shows us why he remains a figure of fascination. In this wide-ranging collection, eminent artists, historians, scientists, and social scientists describe Einstein's influence on their work, and consider his relevance for the future. Scientists discuss how Einstein's vision continues to motivate them, whether in their quest for a fundamental description of nature or in their investigations in chaos theory; art scholars and artists explore his ties to modern aesthetics; a music historian probes Einstein's musical tastes and relates them to his outlook in science; historians explore the interconnections between Einstein's politics, physics, and philosophy; and other contributors examine his impact on the innovations of our time. Uniquely cross-disciplinary, Einstein for the 21st Century serves as a testament to his legacy and speaks to everyone with an interest in his work. The contributors are Leon Botstein, Lorraine Daston, E. L. Doctorow, Yehuda Elkana, Yaron Ezrahi, Michael L. Friedman, Jürg Fröhlich, Peter L. Galison, David Gross, Hanoch Gutfreund, Linda D. Henderson, Dudley Herschbach, Gerald Holton, Caroline Jones, Susan Neiman, Lisa Randall, Jürgen Renn, Matthew Ritchie, Silvan S. Schweber, and A. Douglas Stone.
Download or read book The Private Lives of Albert Einstein written by Roger Highfield and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1994-03-15 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This controversial account of Albert Einstein's scandalous personal life challenges the image of this genius, painting a shocking portrait that exposes him as "an adulterous, egomaniacal misogynist who may have even beaten his first wife"(The New York Times Sunday Magazine). Photos.
Download or read book Proving Einstein Right written by S. James Gates Jr. and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thrilling adventure story chronicling the perilous journey of the scientists who set out to prove the theory of relativity--the results of which catapulted Albert Einstein to fame and forever changed our understanding of the universe. In 1911, a relatively unknown physicist named Albert Einstein published his preliminary theory of gravity. But it hadn't been tested. To do that, he needed a photograph of starlight as it passed the sun during a total solar eclipse. So began a nearly decade-long quest by seven determined astronomers from observatories in four countries, who traveled the world during five eclipses to capture the elusive sight. Over the years, they faced thunderstorms, the ravages of a world war, lost equipment, and local superstitions. Finally, in May of 1919, British expeditions to northern Brazil and the island of Príncipe managed to photograph the stars, confirming Einstein's theory. At its heart, this is a story of frustration, faith, and ultimate victory--and of the scientists whose efforts helped build the framework for the big bang theory, catapulted Einstein to international fame, and shook the foundation of physics.
Download or read book When Einstein Walked with G del written by Jim Holt and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Jim Holt, the New York Times bestselling author of Why Does the World Exist?, comes an entertaining and accessible guide to the most profound scientific and mathematical ideas of recent centuries in When Einstein Walked with Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought. Does time exist? What is infinity? Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down? In this scintillating collection, Holt explores the human mind, the cosmos, and the thinkers who’ve tried to encompass the latter with the former. With his trademark clarity and humor, Holt probes the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the quest for the foundations of mathematics, and the nature of logic and truth. Along the way, he offers intimate biographical sketches of celebrated and neglected thinkers, from the physicist Emmy Noether to the computing pioneer Alan Turing and the discoverer of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot. Holt offers a painless and playful introduction to many of our most beautiful but least understood ideas, from Einsteinian relativity to string theory, and also invites us to consider why the greatest logician of the twentieth century believed the U.S. Constitution contained a terrible contradiction—and whether the universe truly has a future.
Download or read book Einstein s Dreams written by Alan Lightman and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-03-02 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A modern classic explores the connections between science and art, the process of creativity, and ultimately the fragility of human existence. “A magical, metaphysical realm ... Captivating, enchanting, delightful.” —The New York Times Einstein’s Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, about time, relativity and physics. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds. In one, time is circular, so that people are fated to repeat triumphs and failures over and over. In another, there is a place where time stands still, visited by lovers and parents clinging to their children. In another, time is a nightingale, sometimes trapped by a bell jar. Now translated into thirty languages, Einstein’s Dreams has inspired playwrights, dancers, musicians, and painters all over the world. In poetic vignettes, it explores the connections between science and art, the process of creativity, and ultimately the fragility of human existence.
Download or read book Einstein in Bohemia written by Michael D. Gordin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Though Einstein is undoubtedly one of the most important figures in the history of modern science, he was in many respects marginal. Despite being one of the creators of quantum theory, he remained skeptical of it, and his major research program while in Princeton -the quest for a unified field- ultimately failed. In this book, Michael Gordin explores this paradox in Einstein's life by concentrating on a brief and often overlooked interlude: his tenure as professor of physics in Prague, from April of 1911 to the summer of 1912. Though often dismissed by biographers and scholars, it was a crucial year for Einstein both personally and scientifically: his marriage deteriorated, he began thinking seriously about his Jewish identity for the first time, he attempted a new explanation for gravitation-which though it failed had a significant impact on his later work-and he met numerous individuals, including Max Brod, Hugo Bergmann, Philipp Frank, and Arnoést Kolman, who would continue to influence him. In a kind of double-biography of the figure and the city, this book links Prague and Einstein together. Like the man, the city exhibits the same paradox of being both central and marginal to the main contours of European history. It was to become the capital of the Czech Republic but it was always, compared to Vienna and Budapest, less central in the Habsburg Empire. Moreover, it was home to a lively Germanophone intellectual and artistic scene, thought the vast majority of its population spoke only Czech. By emphasizing the marginality and the centrality of both Einstein and Prague, Gordin sheds new light both on Einstein's life and career and on the intellectual and scientific life of the city in the early twentieth century"--
Download or read book Gravity s Shadow written by Harry Collins and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-08-15 with total page 896 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to the theory of relativity, we are constantly bathed in gravitational radiation. When stars explode or collide, a portion of their mass becomes energy that disturbs the very fabric of the space-time continuum like ripples in a pond. But proving the existence of these waves has been difficult; the cosmic shudders are so weak that only the most sensitive instruments can be expected to observe them directly. Fifteen times during the last thirty years scientists have claimed to have detected gravitational waves, but so far none of those claims have survived the scrutiny of the scientific community. Gravity's Shadow chronicles the forty-year effort to detect gravitational waves, while exploring the meaning of scientific knowledge and the nature of expertise. Gravitational wave detection involves recording the collisions, explosions, and trembling of stars and black holes by evaluating the smallest changes ever measured. Because gravitational waves are so faint, their detection will come not in an exuberant moment of discovery but through a chain of inference; for forty years, scientists have debated whether there is anything to detect and whether it has yet been detected. Sociologist Harry Collins has been tracking the progress of this research since 1972, interviewing key scientists and delineating the social process of the science of gravitational waves. Engagingly written and authoritatively comprehensive, Gravity's Shadow explores the people, institutions, and government organizations involved in the detection of gravitational waves. This sociological history will prove essential not only to sociologists and historians of science but to scientists themselves.
Download or read book Einstein on Politics written by Albert Einstein and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-10 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most famous scientist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein was also one of the century's most outspoken political activists. Deeply engaged with the events of his tumultuous times, from the two world wars and the Holocaust, to the atomic bomb and the Cold War, to the effort to establish a Jewish homeland, Einstein was a remarkably prolific political writer, someone who took courageous and often unpopular stands against nationalism, militarism, anti-Semitism, racism, and McCarthyism. In Einstein on Politics, leading Einstein scholars David Rowe and Robert Schulmann gather Einstein's most important public and private political writings and put them into historical context. The book reveals a little-known Einstein--not the ineffectual and naïve idealist of popular imagination, but a principled, shrewd pragmatist whose stands on political issues reflected the depth of his humanity. Nothing encapsulates Einstein's profound involvement in twentieth-century politics like the atomic bomb. Here we read the former militant pacifist's 1939 letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning that Germany might try to develop an atomic bomb. But the book also documents how Einstein tried to explain this action to Japanese pacifists after the United States used atomic weapons to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, events that spurred Einstein to call for international control of nuclear technology. A vivid firsthand view of how one of the twentieth century's greatest minds responded to the greatest political challenges of his day, Einstein on Politics will forever change our picture of Einstein's public activism and private motivations.
Download or read book Cracking the Einstein Code written by Fulvio Melia and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-10-15 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity describes the effect of gravitation on the shape of space and the flow of time. But for more than four decades after its publication, the theory remained largely a curiosity for scientists; however accurate it seemed, Einstein’s mathematical code—represented by six interlocking equations—was one of the most difficult to crack in all of science. That is, until a twenty-nine-year-old Cambridge graduate solved the great riddle in 1963. Roy Kerr’s solution emerged coincidentally with the discovery of black holes that same year and provided fertile testing ground—at long last—for general relativity. Today, scientists routinely cite the Kerr solution, but even among specialists, few know the story of how Kerr cracked Einstein’s code. Fulvio Melia here offers an eyewitness account of the events leading up to Kerr’s great discovery. Cracking the Einstein Code vividly describes how luminaries such as Karl Schwarzschild, David Hilbert, and Emmy Noether set the stage for the Kerr solution; how Kerr came to make his breakthrough; and how scientists such as Roger Penrose, Kip Thorne, and Stephen Hawking used the accomplishment to refine and expand modern astronomy and physics. Today more than 300 million supermassive black holes are suspected of anchoring their host galaxies across the cosmos, and the Kerr solution is what astronomers and astrophysicists use to describe much of their behavior. By unmasking the history behind the search for a real world solution to Einstein’s field equations, Melia offers a first-hand account of an important but untold story. Sometimes dramatic, often exhilarating, but always attuned to the human element, Cracking the Einstein Code is ultimately a showcase of how important science gets done.
Download or read book Einstein and the Rabbi written by Naomi Levy and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2017 Nautilus Award in the Religion/Spirituality of Western Thought category A bestselling author and rabbi’s profoundly affecting exploration of the meaning and purpose of the soul, inspired by the famous correspondence between Albert Einstein and a grieving rabbi. “A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness...” —Albert Einstein When Rabbi Naomi Levy came across this poignant letter by Einstein it shook her to her core. His words perfectly captured what she has come to believe about the human condition: That we are intimately connected, and that we are blind to this truth. Levy wondered what had elicited such spiritual wisdom from a man of science? Thus began a three-year search into the mystery of Einstein’s letter, and into the mystery of the human soul. What emerges is an inspiring, deeply affecting book for people of all faiths filled with universal truths that will help us reclaim our own souls and glimpse the unity that has been evading us. We all long to see more expansively, to live up to our gifts, to understand why we are here. Levy leads us on a breathtaking journey full of wisdom, empathy and humor, challenging us to wake up and heed the voice calling from within—a voice beckoning us to become who we were born be.
