Einstein in Love by Dennis Overbye, Viking, $27.95, ISBN
0670894303
TEN YEARS is a long, long time in publishing, but it鈥檚 time well spent
waiting for Dennis Overbye鈥檚 Einstein in Love. Overbye is deputy science
editor of The New York Times and wrote Lonely Hearts of the
Cosmos. A fly-on-the-wall account of modern cosmologists鈥� epic struggle to
make sense of the Universe, that book ranks as one of the best popular science
books ever written. A decade on, Overbye鈥檚 subject is Albert Einstein.
Can there be anything new to say about Einstein? Overbye doubted
it鈥攗ntil he stumbled into a debate at a scientific meeting on whether
Einstein had cheated his first wife, Mileva Maric, out of her share of the
credit for the special theory of relativity. To Overbye it was a revelation to
hear the God-like Einstein described as 鈥渁 philanderer, a draft dodger, a flirt,
a hustler, an artist, an errant son, an egregious poet, and a scuffling
physicist鈥�. 鈥淪o the old boy had some juice in him after all,鈥� realised Overbye,
and resolved to concentrate on Einstein鈥檚 disreputable early years.
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The cover of Einstein in Love features a photograph of a young
Einstein and a young Maric, implying that this is their love story. But, says
Overbye, throughout his life Einstein was in love with only one thing: physics.
The world thus gained the general theory of relativity鈥攁 sublime
illumination of the ultimate nature of gravity, space and time鈥攂ut it was
a terrible misfortune for the women in his life.
Maric鈥檚 life is heartbreakingly sad. A Serb raised near Belgrade, she was
born with a congenital dislocated hip鈥攁 condition today easily corrected
in childhood. It condemned Maric to lameness. Desperate to be a
physicist鈥攁n extraordinary ambition in a woman of her time鈥攕he
arrived at Zurich鈥檚 Federal Polytechnic School in October 1900. There her 鈥渨orld
line鈥� crossed a certain Albert Einstein鈥檚.
As a woman, the odds were of course stacked against her. To succeed, Maric
needed to have a lot of talent and a lot of luck鈥攖he kind of luck Marie
Sklodowska had when she found an equal partner in Pierre Curie. But not only did
Maric not find an equal, she fell in love with a light so blindingly bright that
she was plunged into the deepest shadow as her dreams withered and died.
Abandoned with their children, she became morose and depressed. Einstein
cited this as his reason for seeking comfort with another, in an affair with his
cousin Elsa. It was a typical act of self-justification. He dehumanised her so
he could treat her appallingly without guilt鈥攚hile he abhorred such
dehumanising behaviour in the outside world.
Overbye masterfully interweaves this tragic story with the story of
Einstein鈥檚 titanic struggles with general relativity and the quantum. Of all his
ideas, Einstein considered his quantum explanation of the photoelectric
effect鈥攑ostulating that light was composed of quanta, later called
photons鈥攁s the most revolutionary.
Of general relativity, the great achievement of Einstein鈥檚 life, Overbye has
much to say. It is almost impossible to believe that Einstein built such an
edifice from the mere observation that a falling body is weightless and a
requirement that the laws of physics appear the same to all observers.
In writing Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, Overbye could interview
the living participants in the cosmological quest. Here, he has to breathe life
into the complex personalities and events of a long-dead era鈥攁nd he
succeeds.