Reading

To answer Young Stumbler #1's question recently, YES, the book on Einstein that I am reading is written by Walter Isaacson. I am really enjoying this book, but that may not be surprising since I often like biographies and books about history. Even if you are not an Engineer, Physicist, or Mathematician, this book is very enjoyable and interesting. At least through the first half of the book, which is as far as I've read.

What really surprises me is that Mr. Isaacson has made some of Einstein's concepts very clear to me. Apparently Einstein himself wrote several books aimed at the layman to explain his theories, and just the few quotes in this book really helped me. I was exposed to these theories in Physics classes at Engineering School, but I had a difficult time grasping their meaning. I only wish our teachers had taken just a few minutes to put these discoveries in their historical context, and present some of the very simple thought experiments that Einstein himself employed to explain these things. If my crusty and stubborn 45-year-old brain can still understand the theory of relativity, imagine how much more so my 20-year-old brain could have understood it.



Speaking of the aging process, I am embarassed to show my other reading material these days. I'm not embarassed about the book, but about the reading glasses that I must wear! Somehow I ended up with this very old book from my parents home MANY years ago, and decided to start reading it. The problem is, the print is SO SMALL! With great embarassment, I found a pair of cleap reading glasses and I must use them to read this book. In my defense, I don't use reading glasses for any other reading. For some reason, this particular edition has REALLY tiny printing.