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| Introduction | |
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| About This Book | |
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| What You're Not to Read | |
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| Foolish Assumptions | |
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| How This Book Is Organized | |
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| Icons Used in This Book | |
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| A Genius Awakens | |
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| Who Was Einstein? | |
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| Dissecting That Famous Brain | |
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| Touring Einstein's Life | |
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| Appreciating His Contributions | |
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| Standing in Awe | |
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| Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Man | |
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| Glimpsing Albert's Early Years | |
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| Dropping Out of High School | |
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| Spending a Great Year at a Swiss School | |
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| Becoming a College Rebel | |
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| Falling in Love Again | |
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| Asserting His Independence | |
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| Moving Forward | |
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| 1905: Einstein's Miracle Year | |
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| Searching for Work | |
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| The Botched-Up House of Physics | |
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| Storming the Scientific World | |
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| On the Shoulders of Giants: What Einstein Learned in School | |
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| A Clockwork Universe | |
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| Introducing the First Astronomers | |
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| Sowing the Seeds of Physics | |
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| Battling with Mars: Later Astronomers | |
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| Inventing Modern Science: Galileo | |
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| Marveling at Newton's Miracle Year | |
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| Developing Newtonian Physics | |
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| Sharing Genius: Newton and Einstein | |
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| The Arrow of Time | |
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| Identifying the Laws of Thermodynamics | |
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| Following the Arrow of Time | |
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| Bringing Einstein into the Equation | |
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| Einstein's Most Fascinating Subject | |
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| Bringing Invisible Forces to Light | |
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| Identifying Forces and Fields | |
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| Sensing the Attraction Between Electricity and Magnetism | |
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| Failing a Demo, and Changing Science | |
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| Creating a Current | |
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| The Great Scot: Appreciating Maxwell | |
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| Creating T-shirt Equations | |
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| And There Was Light | |
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| Trying to Measure the Speed of Light | |
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| Proving Maxwell Right | |
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| Creating a Theory of Colors | |
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| Pitting Particles Against Waves | |
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| The Special Theory of Relativity | |
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| Relativity Before Einstein | |
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| Conducting the First Motion Experiments | |
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| Establishing the Principle of Relativity | |
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| Creating Another Relativity | |
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| Identifying the Man Who Almost Discovered Relativity | |
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| Riding on a Beam of Light | |
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| Accounting for the Ether | |
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| Struggling with an Inconsistency | |
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| Laying the Cornerstones of Relativity | |
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| You See, Light Always Travels at c | |
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| Making Physics Beautiful | |
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| Clocks, Trains, and Automobiles: Exploring Space and Time | |
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| Your Time Is Not My Time | |
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| Dilating Time | |
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| Shortening Space | |
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| Deciding If It's All Real | |
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| Mixing Space and Time | |
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| Making Interstellar Travel Possible | |
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| The Equation | |
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| Bringing Mass into the Equation | |
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| Choosing c[superscript 2] | |
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| Formulating E = mc[superscript 2] | |
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| Introducing Professor Einstein | |
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| The General Theory of Relativity | |
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| Einstein's Second Theory of Relativity | |
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| The Happiest Thought of My Life | |
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| Linking Acceleration in Space and on Earth | |
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| Taking a Quantum Break | |
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| Trying to Extend the Theory of Relativity | |
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| Creating a New System of the World | |
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| Becoming a Mainstream Celebrity | |
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| Black Holes Ain't So Black | |
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| Finding the Geometry of Spacetime from Einstein's Field Equation | |
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| Formulating the Black Hole Idea | |
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| Studying Collapsing Stars | |
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| Reviving Interest in Black Holes | |
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| Starting the Hunt | |
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| Understanding How the Universe Makes Black Holes | |
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| So, What Is a Black Hole Anyway? | |
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| Contemplating Time Travel | |
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| Was Einstein Right about Relativity? | |
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| Conducting Early Tests of Relativity | |
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| Confirming Gravity's Effects on Light | |
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| Making GPS Accurate | |
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| Measuring the Curvature of Spacetime | |
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| So, Was He Right? | |
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| The Quantum and the Universe | |
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| Atoms Before Einstein | |
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| Proving the Reality of Atoms | |
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| Understanding Atoms with a Grain of Salt | |
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| Probing the Atom | |
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| Discovering Quanta | |
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| Exploring the Bohr Atom | |
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| Quantum Leap: God Plays Dice | |
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| Discovering the Quantum | |
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| Imagining Waves of Matter | |
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| Discovering the New Mechanics of the Atom | |
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| Contemplating Wave Mechanics | |
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| Succumbing to the New Physics | |
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| Einstein and the Bomb | |
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| Warning the President: Einstein's Letter | |
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| Nuclear Physics in a Nutshell | |
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| Discovering Nuclear Fission | |
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| Making the Bomb | |
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| Remaining a Pacifist | |
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| Einstein's Greatest Blunder | |
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| Looking for the Edge of the Universe | |
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| Calculating the Curvature of the Universe | |
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| Einstein's Model of the Universe | |
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| Watching the Universe Expand | |
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| Not a Blunder After All | |
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| Reevaluating Einstein's Universe | |
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| Exploring the Runaway Universe | |
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| Reviving the Cosmological Constant: Einstein Was Right After All | |
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| What Is the Cosmological Constant? | |
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| Looking to Unify All of Physics | |
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| Reviving Einstein's Dream | |
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| The Part of Tens | |
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| Ten Insights into Einstein's Beliefs on Religion and Philosophy | |
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| Wrestling with Judaism | |
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| Defining What It Means to Be Religious | |
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| Reconciling Religion and Science | |
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| Meeting Einstein's God | |
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| Tracking the Development of Religion | |
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| Holding On Tight to Determinism | |
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| Reading Philosophy | |
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| Defining Thinking | |
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| Interpreting the Scientific Method | |
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| Stating the Goals of Science | |
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| Ten Women Who Influenced Einstein | |
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| Einstein's Mother, Pauline | |
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| Einstein's Sister, Maja | |
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| Einstein's First Wife, Mileva Maric | |
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| Einstein's Daughter, Lieserl | |
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| Einstein's Second Wife, Elsa | |
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| Einstein's Stepdaughter Ilse | |
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| Einstein's Stepdaughter Margot | |
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| Einstein's Secretary, Helen Dukas | |
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| Einstein's First Love, Marie Winteler | |
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| Marie Curie | |
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| Glossary | |
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| Einstein Timeline | |
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| Index | |