Relativity

The Special and the General Theory

By: Albert Einstein

Narrated by: Julian Lopez-Morillas

Albert Einstein described Relativity as a "popular explosion" of his famous theory. Written in 1916, it introduced the lay audience to the remarkable perspective that had overturned theoretical physics. Einstein's genius was to express this perspective in understandable terms.

Public Domain (P)2009 Highbridge

Critic reviews

"Einstein's book is not casual reading, but for those who appreciate his work without diving into the arcana of theoretical physics, Relativity will prove a stimulating read." (Amazon.com review)

OK

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Not for me. It talks about this book being dumbed down for the average person and some parts are but it seems to me that I must be dumber than I think because the scientific content got above my head after the 1st hour or so mainly because it was moving so fast from concept to concept. I've always been interested in relativity and have read some short explanations that made much more sense of the theory than this book did. I think you need a decent amount of knowledge about the subject to be able to follow this unless you really slow it down and replay certain parts over and over.

Great

Amazing to listen to the words of a dead genius. It is so so cool.

Great Content - Not So Great Narrating

Content was great, the narrator wasn’t as strong. Can make sections of the book difficult to get through.

Confusing for the wrong reason.

Either the reader or Einstein failed to mention that light is the byproduct of energy and it's not itself a physical product! You cannot use a byproduct as the main product of an equation.
It's flawed...

Einstein writes in a very engaging way

I didn’t not realize how colorful and entertainingly engaging that Einstein was. Fascinating and educational.

Another Absolute Must have

A Must have book for anyone intersted in the brillant mind of Einstein, or anyone interested in the field. more of a Must have as a reference book.

educational

a little to advance linguistically speaking but a must have for physicist around the field of study

Chase light and you'll forget how to read shadow

Written by a genius and is genius! Of course even though I am cultured enough to know english terms it does strike me to have odd analogies mostly due to it given age. Its fun to go to the beginning and put the original ideas into concepts that are now practiced so frequently. Its fun to listen and go, "Oh this is how he proved the world turns around the sun!" This book made my existence become 1D as neither T or x, y, or z was relevant only the words seeping deep within my brain..

Love Einstein!

I loved hearing the verbiage and intentions of Albert Einstein. He had such an incredible mind.

Was hoping for something more digestible

Maybe I should’ve done more research into what this title was actually about, but based upon what I read in the description, I was hoping it would be approachable for laypeople.

I don’t want to discount Einstein’s work or findings — of course he was a genius and his discoveries mind-blowing. But, as a “book,” this one misses the mark a bit. Not that I’m a scientist, but I still thought I would’ve been able to understand this book better than I did. Unfortunately, it was a little too abstract and complicated for me.

As I now go back through its reviews, it would appear as though this was a one-to-one translation of one of Einstein’s essays. Sure, maybe I should have figured that out earlier, but, again, based on the description, I didn’t expect that to be the case.

Of course, none of that is to say this is a bad book; it still has some good takeaways. It just leaves something to be desired — a real, simple explanation of relativity, in everyday terms. Personally, I’ll be looking elsewhere for that.

-Brian Sachetta
Author of “Get Out of Your Head”