Imagination is more important than knowledge

In 1905 Albert Einstein wrote a set of scientific articles, including one holding the famous equation E=mc2 that transformed our perception of the world and became the foundations of quantum mechanics and general relativity - the twin intellectual pinnacles of the past century.  Honestly,  not all that bad for a 26-year-old Albert who was a patent office clerk in Switzerland.

I just finished reading  Walter Isaacson's Einstein - his life and universe.   Isaacson has produced a marvelous book in providing a careful and thorough exploration of Albert Einstein's life, which is genuinely a skilfull piece of scientific literature and a fabulously good read.   

Isaacson believes we should consider Einstein not as a famous scientific mind, but as a revolutionary with admiration for the 'harmony of nature', a scientist who rated imagination far higher than knowledge and an individual whose slogan, at least in his early years, was  'long live impudence! it is my guardian angel.'  But I'm not sure if I agree with him on that point.  And yes, Albert had an offensive streak, no one could probably doubt that, but it cost him profoundly too, also not without positive long-term outcomes.  

Albert had an active and bold attitude at the Zurich Polytechnic, where he studied physics, he was his year's only graduate not to be offered a job.  So he chose to spend months applying unsuccessfully for academic jobs across Europe.  The Swiss Army even declined him for having flat feet.  In the end, he made it to the Swiss patent office.  It was a great thing for the young Albert.  'had he been given instead the job of an assistant to a professor, he might have felt constrained to be overly cautious in challenging accepted notions.'  

Instead, Einstein did his day's work in a couple of hours and then sat back in his 'worldly order' and indulged in a happy uncertainty in order to create some of the most beautiful, challenging ideas of modern science: the special law of relativity and the idea that light behaves like particles, for example. 'Physics was to be upended, and Einstein was poised to be the one to do it,' says Isaacson.

I really believe, it's one of the greatest stories of modern science and to his credit and my surprise, Isaacson has done a fantastic job in telling it. This is, very simply, an interesting read.