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Bob and Alice go spinning?Essential reading for all those reading the current Einstein biographies is a NY Review of Books article titled The Other Einstein by Lee Smolin. Smolin, a theoretical physicist, takes the biographers to task (although he does prefer Neffe's biography, as I have - see my review) for not really answering the most essential questions about Einstein. One such question is whether Einstein's childishness in later years was pre-meditated. Smolin writes:
The question that needs to be answered, although none of the biographers do so, is how this arrogant, charismatic revolutionary turned into the otherworldly sage who was said to be an "emblem...of the mature and reflective human being." The man who was once seen as childish became admired for being childlike. How did this happen? Had Einstein become resigned after facing political and personal tragedies, or was his new character, as Overbye and Neffe both suspect, at least partly an act? "Einstein the lonely genius," as Neffe writes, "was partly a creation of his own making."
Smolin does provide some fascinating stories that lend credence to this suggestion. He also has a very interesting take on Einstein's later years - years though to be "wasted" by many scientists and biographers because of Einstein's failed attempt to find a unified theory, and his stubborn battle against the probabilistic and non-realistic view of quantum mechanics in the Copenhagen Interpretation. According to Smolin, Einstein's "act" worked against the acceptance of his fight against quantum orthodoxy:
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