Einstein's Cosmos

Albert Einstein's theories had a revolutionary effect on physics at the start of the 20th century, but these theories are often hidden in mathematical equations and can be hard to understand. In this book Michio Kaku takes the reader through the simple ideas which lead Einstein to his theories. Thus we heard about Einstein's early struggles culminating in his 'miracle year' of 1905. This was followed by the development of general relativity and Einstein's rise to fame when it was experimentally confirmed. Then, in the last 30 years of his life, Einstein worked away from mainstream physics in his search for a unified theory. It's a well written book, being highly informative as well as having an easy to read style and is to be recommended to anyone wanting to find out about Einstein's work.

In fact maybe the book is a bit too easy to read - I felt that the reader isn't really challenged with the counterintuitive nature of Einstein's ideas. Hence it is probably best as an introduction to Einstein's ideas which the reader can follow up on. (there are notes and a list of further reading at the end but surprisingly no index)

In the last three chapters of the book we find out about Einstein's quest for a unified field theory, where Kaku point out how his ideas were forerunners of today's 'theories of everything'. We also hear about Einstein's his battles with quantum theory where I felt that Kaku could have stood up for Einstein more. I suppose the majority opinion amoung physicists is that Einstein was wrong in these battles, but that's certainly not my opinion.