Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time (Great Discoveries)

"A fresh and highly visual tour through Einstein's astonishing legacy." —Brian Greene There's no better short book that explains just what Einstein did than Einstein's Cosmos. Keying Einstein's crucial discoveries to the simple mental images that inspired them, Michio Kaku finds a revealing new way to discuss his ideas, and delivers an appealing and always accessible introduction to Einstein's work. In paperback for the centenary of the discovery of relativity, "a fresh and highly visual tour through Einstein's astonishing legacy" (Brian Greene).The year 2005 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of the paper that launched Einstein's career, made E=mc2 famous, and ushered in a revolution in science—the paper that announced the theory of special relativity. And there's no better short book that explains just what Einstein did than Einstein's Cosmos . Keying Einstein's crucial discoveries to the simple mental images that inspired them, Michio Kaku finds a revealing new way to discuss these ideas, and delivers an appealing and always accessible introduction to Einstein's work. Table of contents -- Preface: New look at the legacy of Albert Einstein -- Part I: First picture: Racing a light beam -- Physics before Einstein -- Early years -- Special relativity and "The Miracle Year" -- Part II: Second picture: Warped space-time -- General relativity and "The Happiest Thought in My Life" -- New copernicus -- Big bang and black holes -- Part III: Unfinished picture: Unified field theory -- Unification and the quantum challenge -- War, peace, and -- Einstein's prophetic legacy. A leading string theory physicist demonstrates how Albert Einstein used simple, picture-based imagery to convey his theories about relativity and subsequently changed the way people thought about the world, in a volume that evaluates the beauty and lasting impact of Einstein's cosmos