A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein [Paperback]

The most highly celebrated and recognized scientist alive today, Stephen Hawking has assembled, in this volume, highlights of Einstein's groundbreaking scientific works, such as his Special Theory of Relativity (1905) and his General Theory of Relativity (1915).

Also included are Einstein's thoughtful views on politics, religion, the history and development of physics, and the interplay between science and the world.

In a chapter titled "Selections from Out of My Later Years," Hawking discusses Einstein's reservations concerning quantum mechanics: "Einstein pointed out that if we were able to investigate microscopic phenomena on the smallest scales, we would be able to find deterministic relations." In other words, Einstein had serious doubts about the validity of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and rejected the fundamentally probabilistic nature of reality espoused by those who held to the workings of chance and randomness at the quantum (microscopic) level. "God does not play dice with the universe," he famously opined; "God is subtle but he is not malicious." He held adamantly (some would say stubbornly) to his belief that physical reality is, at bottom, deterministic.

Hawking gives brief introductions to each of Einstein's papers, thereby providing helpful historical and scientific perspectives.

Einstein once said, "Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater." Yeah, right! Einstein is much too modest.

In a sense, however, Einstein is correct. Although this volume is replete with mathematical equations, one can read between the lines and gain an improved understanding of his revolutionary theories of spacetime and gravitation.

Einstein makes us smile with his wry humor: "Today I am described in Germany as a 'German savant,' and in England as a 'Swiss Jew.' Should it ever be my fate to be represetned as a bete noire, I should, on the contrary, become a 'Swiss Jew' for the Germans and a 'German savant' for the English."

The book's title of comes from another Einstein quote, "People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

A very sobering and demystifying look at Einstein's contributions to the development of the Special and the General Theories of Relativity, his work on Cosmology (and his greatest mistake in positing the Cosmic constant), his unsuccessful quest for a "Final Theory of Everything," as well as his thoughts on politics, philosophy, history and religion. The substance of this collection of Einstein's papers we have seen before but not the lore and the deep understanding of Einstein the man and his technique as scientist, as it is so artfully annotated and portrayed by the holder of the Lucasian Chair of mathematics at Cambridge University, the renown Stephen Hawkings.

What Hawkings give us that is new here is a clearer understanding of where Einstein's true genius lay: It was it seems in understanding the full import and the subtleties of the theories that went on before him, both experimentally and mathematically, and then accepting and utilizing them all to the max; without, hesitation, doubt or reservations. With the single exception of the Quantum theory where he uttered the now famous sentence that "God Does not Play Dice with the universe," Einstein was confident in his approach even when he was not confident in his ability to carry his projects through to their conclusions. In short, Einstein believed deeply in the proven (and only in the proven) science of his day. For instance, he never believed in the "luminiferous ether," nor was he deterred by the profound implications of the constancy of light: that the rest of the universe of science would have to be rearranged to accommodate this new profound fundamental and underlying truth.

It is not just coincidental that both versions of relativity leaned heavily on the monumental work of James Clerk Maxwell's description of electromagnetic forces, or on Hendrick A. Lorentz mathematical transformations, and later on the new four-dimensional geometry of Hermann Minkowski as well as that of Bernard Riemann, but also, on the results of the Michelson-Morley experiments, proving once and for all the non-existence of the imagined ether. It seems that it was a signature characteristic of Einstein that he had the vision and the foresight to know that important discoveries were whirling about him. More than most of his contemporaries, he seemed to have had a "second sense" to know that he was in the midst, and was a key part of, a new scientific revolution. And thus, much to his credit (and much underplayed), Einstein did not care about "scientific orthodoxy," nor about the fact that the mathematical tools and talents that he came endowed with were often insufficient for the tasks he was undertaking. He simply, forged stubbornly ahead anyway, seeking help from mathematicians and fellow scientists more talented than he.

However the thing that really sets his genius a part from that of other scientists of his era was the fact that he could recognize a "foundation truth," and did not waver or allow scientific orthodoxy to cause him to alter his views. He was as tenacious as a foxhound onto the scent of a fox in pursuing the logical consequences of fundamental truths. That is what won him the Nobel Prize, for his work on the "Black Body" experiment and on Brownian Motion, rather than for the Relativity theories that he is most famously known for.

This is an engaging book. The more I see of Hawking's mathematical explanations the more comfortable I become with them. The book is supremely accessible for anyone who has mastered elementary calculus. Four stars

Essentially a reprint of Einstein's own (and freely available) writings on relativity with a 20-odd page introduction by Stephen Hawking. While it may be worth $11 when printed on paper, it is decidedly not when purchased on Kindle.

Otherwise it reads like a good college Mathematics textbook - a slow and rewarding read if you have time to digest it.