NOVA: Einstein's Big Idea
(Episode No. 3213)
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
NOVA dramatizes the stories of the men and women whose innovative
thinking across four centuries led finally to Einstein's bold
breakthrough.
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E = mc^2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation.
D. Bodanis. Walker, New York, 2000.
$25.00 (337 pp.). ISBN 0-8027-1352-1
Editorial Reviews from Amazon.com
E=mc^2. Just about everyone has at least heard of Albert Einstein's
formulation of 1905, which came into the world as something of an
afterthought. But far fewer can explain his insightful linkage of
energy to mass. David Bodanis offers an easily grasped gloss on the
equation. Mass, he writes, "is simply the ultimate type of condensed
or concentrated energy," whereas energy "is what billows out as an
alternate form of mass under the right circumstances."
"Just what those circumstances are occupies much of Bodanis's book,
which pays homage to Einstein and, just as important, to predecessors
such as Maxwell, Faraday, and Lavoisier, who are not as well known as
Einstein today. Balancing writerly energy and scholarly weight,
Bodanis offers a primer in modern physics and cosmology, explaining
that the universe today is an expression of mass that will, in some
vastly distant future, one day slide back to the energy side of the
equation, replacing the "dominion of matter" with "a great
stillness"--a vision that is at once lovely and profoundly
frightening.
"Without sliding into easy psychobiography, Bodanis explores other
circumstances as well; namely, Einstein's background and character,
which combined with a sterling intelligence to afford him an
idiosyncratic view of the way things work--a view that would change
the world. --Gregory McNamee
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