Volume 44, Number 6 · April 10, 1997
The Contradictory Genius
By Alan Lightman
Albert Einstein: A Biography
by Albrecht Fölsing, translated by Ewald Osers
Viking, 882 pp., $34.95
Until the age of seven or eight, whenever the young Albert Einstein was asked a question, he would slowly formulate an answer, mutter it tentatively to himself, and finally repeat aloud his considered response. This laborious method of speaking gave the impression that he needed to say everything twice. His parents consulted a doctor, and the family housekeeper called the boy 'stupid.' Decades later, Einstein's sister Maja recorded this odd childhood habit and attributed it to her brother's thoroughness in thinking. Yet the doubling of each sentence, once for himself and once for everyone else, may also have been an early sign of the deep inner world that Einstein inhabited. Brilliant, supremely self-confident, brutally honest, witty, stubborn—Einstein was above all else a loner.
Review, 5627 words
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