Acknowledgments ix Introduction A Hundred Times More Than Relativity Theory 1 Chapter 1 "An Act of Desperation" 5 Chapter 2 The Impudent Swabian 15 Chapter 3 The Gypsy Life 21 Chapter 4 Two Pillars of Wisdom 26 Chapter 5 The Perfect Instruments of the Creator 36 Chapter 6 More Heat Than Light 44 Chapter 7 Difficult Counting 51 Chapter 8 Those Fabulous Molecules 62 Chapter 9 Tripping the Light Heuristic 70 Chapter 10 Entertaining the Contradiction 80 Chapter 11 Stalking the Planck 86 Chapter 12 Calamity Jeans 94 Chapter 13 Frozen Vibrations 103 Chapter 14 Planck's Nobel Nightmare 111 Chapter 15 Joining the Union 122 Chapter 16 Creative Fusion 129 Chapter 17 The Importance of Being Nernst 141 Chapter 18 Lamenting the Ruins 149 Chapter 19 A Cosmic Interlude 160 Chapter 20 Bohr's Atomic Sonata 168 Chapter 21 Relying on Chance 181 Chapter 22 Chaotic Ghosts 193 Chapter 23 Fifteen Million Minutes of Fame 204 Chapter 24 The Indian Comet 215 Chapter 25 Quantum Dice 228 Chapter 26 The Royal Marriage: E = mc2 = hnu 241 Chapter 27 The Viennese Polymath 254 Chapter 28 Confusion and Then Uncertainty 268 Chapter 29 Nicht diese Tone 279 Appendix 1: The Physicists 287 Appendix 2: The Three Thermal Radiation Laws 291 Notes 295 References 319 Index 325
A. Douglas Stone is the Carl A. Morse Professor of Applied Physics and Physics at Yale University.
"Brief, pacey and lucid... The breadth and depth of Einstein's contribution in this area becomes overwhelmingly clear... Worth a read because it demonstrates that there is more to Einstein's oeuvre than even most quantum physicists know. Stone concludes that Einstein's work was worthy of four Nobel prizes, and it is a measure of the book's achievement that his claim sounds quite reasonable."--Graham Farmelo, Nature "Albert Einstein (1879-1955) is as famous for his paradigm-shifting theories of relativity as he is for his grudge against quantum mechanics, but Stone's (Physics/Yale Univ.) engaging history of Einstein's ardent search for a unifying theory tells a different story. Einstein's creative mind was behind almost every single major development in quantum mechanics... The author adeptly weaves his subject's personal life and scientific fame through the tumult of world war and, in accessible and bright language, brings readers deep into Einstein's struggle with both the macroscopic reality around him and the quantum reality he was trying to unlock... A wonderful reminder that Einstein's monumental role in the development of contemporary science is even more profound than history has allowed."--Kirkus Reviews
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