Einstein: His Life and Universe
by Walter Isaacson
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Author presents live at Microsoft and shows vintage photos
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Sep, 2016
Spoiler:
Biographer Walter Isaacson, presenting live at Microsoft, begins by asserting that Microsoft has always valued creativity over credentials and that creativity, not intelligence, is what sets Einstein apart from the rest of us. He busts some common myths about Einstein and takes us through the string of failures that led up to his discovering that light is not only a wave but a particle. Calling Einstein “the patron saint” of distracted schoolchildren, he says Einstein was not only creative and curious but relentlessly rebellious in the face of authority.
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Animated book summary with three main lessons
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Sep, 2021
Spoiler:
The video focuses on Einstein’s character and personality more so than on his achievements, offering three major lessons from Isaacson’s biography. First, that Einstein’s child-like curiosity was central to his success. Second, that Einstein did not earn the Nobel Prize for his theory of relativity but rather for his work on the photoelectric effect. And three, our journey through life stops only when we die. Einstein’s family found twelve pages of equations scattered around his deathbed; he never stopped wondering and working.
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Walter Isaacson is a bestselling American author, journalist, and history professor at Tulane University. He has been the president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C., the chair and CEO of CNN, and the editor of Time. Isaacson is a graduate of Harvard University and Oxford University. He received the National Humanities Medal in 2023.
Other books by Walter Isaacson
Publications
Gates Notes: Leonardo is one of the most fascinating people ever
The Guardian: The man beneath the electrified halo of hair
The New York Times: The Scale of Einstein, From Faith to Formulas
The Wall Street Journal: ‘Genius’ Review: Albert Einstein, Sexy Mensch
Forbes: Walter Isaacson: What We Can Learn About Innovation From Leonardo da Vinci
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