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Einstein's Mistakes: The Human Failings of Genius

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Author: Hans C. Ohanian
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$24.95~~
Buy New: $15.20
You Save: $9.75 (39%)

New (52) Used (9) from $12.95

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

7 reviews
Sales Rank: 22255

Media: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.5

ISBN: 0393062937
Dewey Decimal Number: 530.09
EAN: 9780393062939
ASIN: 0393062937

Publication Date: September 8, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Also Available In:

•	Kindle Edition - Einstein's Mistakes: The Human Failings of Genius

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Fresh insights into aspects of Einstein we don't usually consider: his mistakes and the role they played in the discovery of his theories.

Although Einstein was the greatest genius of the 20th century, many of his ground-breaking discoveries were blighted by mistakes, ranging from serious misconceptions in physics to blatant errors in mathematics. For instance, Einstein's first theoretical proof of the famous formula E = mc was incomplete and only approximately valid; he struggled with this problem for many years, but he never found a complete proof (better mathematicians did). In this provocative forensic biography, Hans Ohanian dissects this and other mistakes and places them in the context of Einstein's turbulent life and times. Einstein was often navigating in a fog of irrational and mystical inspirations, but his profound intuition about physics permitted him to reach his goal despite—and sometimes because of-the mistakes he made along the way. Einstein's uncanny ability to use his mistakes subconsciously as stepping-stones toward his revolutionary theories was one hallmark of his genius. 25 illustrations.

Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Finally... September 11, 2008
Michael Santomauro (New York, NY USA)
8 out of 18 found this review helpful

A book that explains the HYPE over one man...I have been saying this for years and very few people believed me!!!

Ask anyone where E=mc2 comes from and you will be told "Einstein." It is on T-shirts, public monuments and book covers -- The problem is that Einstein was not the first to discover the equation: It was known for several years before he presented it in his celebrated 1905 paper, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on its Energy-content?" Nor was the proof that he provided there complete.

Plus, there are flaws in Einstein's Principle of Equivalence (concerning gravity and acceleration), an important building block in the general theory of relativity. And there are errors in Einstein's effort to introduce a "cosmological constant" in his equations for space-time. The mathematical constant supposedly confirmed Einstein's belief that the universe was static.

THE UNIVERSE IS NOT STATIC!

But Einstein was.

3 out of 5 stars

Flawed Storytelling September 27, 2008
H. Arons
4 out of 12 found this review helpful

The author is a real raconteur, and he tells stories well. It's too bad, then, that he allows his puerile personal opinions to distract from the subject at hand, which is--after all--Einstein's mistakes.

Just tell the story, and keep all the claptrap about religious fundamentalists, the purity of science, the evils of creationism, and the like for your letters to the New York Times

5 out of 5 stars

A biography of Einstein by way of analyzing his failures and mistakes October 13, 2008
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

When asked by his student how he'd respond to evidence against his famous theory of relativity, Einstein maintained his belief in it against all possible empirical evidence - seemingly. His sense of humor may have outsmarted him but it also reflected his singular mind and stubborn purpose - and his reliance on intuition and inspiration over all. EINSTEIN'S MISTAKES comes from a physicist who offers a biography of Einstein by way of analyzing his failures and mistakes: as such it provides an involving survey which considers the history of physics and Einstein's mistakes as well as those of other leading scientists over the decades. An involving, moving survey.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

3 out of 5 stars

Interesting material hampered by attack-dog presentation October 30, 2008
Clark B. Timmins (West Jordan, UT USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

The text presents a mix of light biography, theory explanation, and analysis of errors in a blend appropriate to support the major thesis--that Einstein made mistakes. The text is well written, generally balanced in structure, and enjoyable. Early chapters develop Einstein's career in the greater field of physics, first presenting the advances of Galileo, Newton, Lorentz, and others. Einstein is then presented as a young man working as a patent clerk and desiring a university posting--a posting beyond his grasp due to mediocre grades, poor personal hygiene, and challenged interpersonal skills. The book then follows his entire career. The included biography however is spotty and highlights anecdotes, but does not attempt to explain the man in notable detail--though the text is not intended as a comprehensive biography. Throughout, Einstein is presented as self-promoting, prone to foibles, a lousy mathematician, excessively proud, human--and also intelligent in the arena of physics. The author clearly does not hold Einstein in the same fabled light favored by conventional wisdom, for example presenting Einstein's initial forays into general relatively as "a performance worthy of Elmer Fudd" (p. 196) and suggesting that many of Einstein's theoretical advances were either proposed earlier by others, co-discovered but not co-attributed, or were invalid in detail while only accidentally correct in the general case. These various issues form the bulk of what the text terms Einstein's mistakes, noting "Einstein made so many mistakes in his scientific work that it is hard to keep track of them" (p. 327). The text does not claim to discover any mistakes--they are all attributed to other sources in the two-dozen pages of endnotes. The text argues that Einstein's reputation remains untarnished not for lack of faults but because of professional courtesy: "...he did not label Einstein's mistake as such. This restraint has also been observed by later writers..." (p. 96).

The text presents most material in a roughly chronological order, considering theories and papers in the order they were published. It is apparent from the material included that Einstein's interests were wide and that he had a fundamental grasp on the significant questions of physics during his lifetime. However, Einstein is presented as, at best, a bumbling mathematician. Most of the chronicled mistakes are mathematical errors. Much of science typically works in a stepwise fashion, with theories being offered and then either modified or withdrawn. Einstein was no exception to this and many of his published theories were later modified, either by himself or others. These early theoretical excursions, when not substantively correct on the first presentation, are considered serious mistakes. When Einstein did not know of significant contemporaneous developments, his ignorance is also termed a mistake. Some of Einstein's personal foibles and some of his career moves are considered mistakes.

In all, Einstein's collected papers are said to comprise "about 180 original items. Of these, about 50 contain mistakes...It's a bad scorecard" (p. 327). While the close examination of Einstein's productivity makes fascinating reading, the text's unfortunate tone borders on gloating and is not consistently objective; Einstein's mistakes "were perfectly mundane, careless, and sometimes stupid lapses in logic and mathematics" (p. 332). And in fact, the tone of the title itself captures entirely the tone of the text. The text's greatest disappointment, however, lies in the conclusion "[w]hat lessons can we extract from Einstein's mistakes? Not many" (p. 332). Surely this is wrong--studying the failings of genius, after all, helps us understand our own average failings in an entirely different light. And even if the conclusion is after all correct, that nothing can be learned by examining Einstein's mistakes, then why write the book in the first place?

5 out of 5 stars

Something for everyone November 2, 2008
Phelps Gates (Chapel Hill, NC USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

I was worried that I'd need to brush up on my long-forgotten college math and physics to understand this book, but the book is itself a bit of a brush-up course. And what's especially remarkable is that it's understandable, at different levels, by people with almost any scientific background, or none at all. People who understand tensor calculus (or who know what it is!) would, I'm sure, get more out of the book than I did, but with only a layman's concept of relativity, I was able to follow a good many of the points he makes about Einstein's mistakes (such as his failure to consider tidal effects in the Equivalence Principle).

Except for E=mc squared (and Newton's F=ma), there's hardly an equation in sight. And a lot of the book is totally non-technical: many of Einstein's mistakes involved women, rather than math or physics, and this aspect of his life is not slighted. The book examines the "Einstein phenomenon" and how Einstein managed his well-deserved reputation as the scientist of the century. And (unless it's a hat) the author has the most marvelous haircut I've ever seen on a physicist!

biography einstein forensic biography physics relativity

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