Einstein's Mistakes: The Human Failings of Genius - Tapa blanda

"The book's quixotic approach-retelling Einstein's story by homing in on his blunders-makes for good intellectual entertainment... [It] kept me eagerly turning the pages." -- George Johnson - Los Angeles Times "A wonderful story that is well worth taking the time to read...We get a short course in this history of modern physics, one that is well-written and entertaining as well." -- Alan S. McRae - Mathematical Reviews "Recounts [Einstein's] chronicle of errors in clear and engaging prose, giving us in the process a short course in the history of modern physics and a witty and provocative account of the subject's life." -- Darrin M. McMahon - Wall Street Journal

Although Einstein was the greatest genius of the twentieth century, many of his groundbreaking discoveries were blighted by mistakes, ranging from serious errors in mathematics to bad misconceptions in physics and failures to grasp the subtleties of his own creations. This forensic biography dissects Einstein's scientific mistakes and places them in the context of his turbulent life and times. In lively, accessible prose, Hans C. Ohanian paints a fresh, insightful portrait of the real Einstein at work, in contrast to the uncritical celebrity worship found in many biographies. Of the approximately 180 original scientific papers that Einstein published in his lifetime, about 40 are infested with mistakes. For instance, Einstein's first mathematical proof of the famous formula E = mc2 was incomplete and only approximately valid; he struggled with this problem for many years, but he never found a complete proof (better mathematicians did). Einstein was often lured by irrational and mystical inspirations, but his extraordinary intuition about physics permitted him to discover profound truths despite-and sometimes because of-the mistakes he made along the way. He was a sleepwalker: his intuition told him where he needed to go, and he somehow managed to get there without quite knowing how. As this book persuasively argues, the defining hallmark of Einstein's genius was not any special mathematical ability but an uncanny talent to use his mistakes as stepping stones to formulate his revolutionary theories.