Skip to main content

Einstein's Masterwork: 1915 and the General Theory of Relativity - John Gribbin ****

Of the various anniversaries turning up in 2015, none is as significant to science as the development of Einstein's general theory of relativity. As the C. P. Snow quote on the back of this compact and highly readable book suggests 'If Einstein had not created the general theory (in 1915) no one else would have done so... perhaps not for generations.' The acclaimed British science writer John Gribbin is the ideal person to guide us through this key period of Einstein's life - after all he was co-author with Michael White of the less tightly focussed Einstein: a life in science.

 Because this a relatively small book (physically) it sits somewhere between a full scale scientific biography and a short introductory guide. It's quick to read, compact and highly accessible. Gribbin makes a good tutor, providing an experience that is not unlike being lectured to by a slightly pernickety but insightful and friendly professor.  (Pernickety, for instance in his careful insistence that it should always be the 'special theory of relativity', not the useful shorthand 'special relativity' (and likewise for the general theory), because it is the theory that is special/general, not the relativity.)

 If I am honest I wasn't looking forward to yet another set of biographical information on Einstein. Not long ago, a reader sent me an email commenting that he had enjoyed one of my books, but he was a bit fed up reading yet another potted biography of the great man. There seems an obligation to do it, yet when you've read a few popular science books about relativity (or gravity, or light, or quantum theory) it does seem that, like Douglas Adams' bowl of petunias, the natural response to reading about Einstein's life should be 'Oh, no, not again.' But somehow, as if by magic, Gribbin manages to make the same old personal history interesting, with real insights that show the links between the man's life and work.

 If anything, the biographical sections are a little more successful than those that concentrate on the physics. Gribbin knows his stuff (forwards, backwards and upside down), but the book's approach is just a bit too summary to give the best insight in the special theory and particularly the general theory of relativity. For instance, he gives the usual rubber sheet/trampoline with a weight analogy for matter producing a warp that bends a straight line path, but doesn't explain why this warp should cause a stationary object to start falling. The compactness means he doesn't show the actual equations of the general theory, which in compact form are beautiful and aren't difficult to be guided around, if not comprehended in detail. And he perpetuates the myth (as, I confess, I often have) that John Wheeler coined the term 'black hole.'

 This isn't, then, a book for someone who wants to get their brains entangled around the nitty gritty of Einstein's theories of relativity, but it is an excellent way to get a feel for Einstein the man, and a simple, easy to grasp overview of relativity theory - an ideal marker for this centenary year.
Hardback:  

Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Battle of the Big Bang - Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Harper *****

It's popular science Jim, but not as we know it. There have been plenty of popular science books about the big bang and the origins of the universe (including my own Before the Big Bang ) but this is unique. In part this is because it's bang up to date (so to speak), but more so because rather than present the theories in an approachable fashion, the book dives into the (sometimes extremely heated) disputed debates between theoreticians. It's still popular science as there's no maths, but it gives a real insight into the alternative viewpoints and depth of feeling. We begin with a rapid dash through the history of cosmological ideas, passing rapidly through the steady state/big bang debate (though not covering Hoyle's modified steady state that dealt with the 'early universe' issues), then slow down as we get into the various possibilities that would emerge once inflation arrived on the scene (including, of course, the theories that do away with inflation). ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics - Frank Verstraete and Céline Broeckaert **

It's with a heavy heart that I have to say that I could not get on with this book. The structure is all over the place, while the content veers from childish remarks to unexplained jargon. Frank Versraete is a highly regarded physicist and knows what he’s talking about - but unfortunately, physics professors are not always the best people to explain physics to a general audience and, possibly contributed to by this being a translation, I thought this book simply doesn’t work. A small issue is that there are few historical inaccuracies, but that’s often the case when scientists write history of science, and that’s not the main part of the book so I would have overlooked it. As an example, we are told that Newton's apple story originated with Voltaire. Yet Newton himself mentioned the apple story to William Stukeley in 1726. He may have made it up - but he certainly originated it, not Voltaire. We are also told that ‘Galileo discovered the counterintuitive law behind a swinging o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ctrl+Alt+Chaos - Joe Tidy ****

Anyone like me with a background in programming is likely to be fascinated (if horrified) by books that present stories of hacking and other destructive work mostly by young males, some of whom have remarkable abilities with code, but use it for unpleasant purposes. I remember reading Clifford Stoll's 1990 book The Cuckoo's Egg about the first ever network worm (the 1988 ARPANet worm, which accidentally did more damage than was intended) - the book is so engraved in my mind I could still remember who the author was decades later. This is very much in the same vein,  but brings the story into the true internet age. Joe Tidy gives us real insights into the often-teen hacking gangs, many with members from the US and UK, who have caused online chaos and real harm. These attacks seem to have mostly started as pranks, but have moved into financial extortion and attempts to destroy others' lives through doxing, swatting (sending false messages to the police resulting in a SWAT te...
Post a Comment
Read more