Point of View

This biography is told from the third person. The narrator occasionally interjects information of scientific relevance to Einstein's work. The Forward states that some of the described events are fictional. For instance, although Einstein took numerous walks down Mercer Street, the walk described in the first chapter is contrived.

Setting

This biography was written and published in 1949, in the United States, shortly after the end of World War II. The book chronicles Einstein's life in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States.

Language and Meaning

The language in this book is explicit: the moon is a quarter million miles away from Earth. The earth is rotating around the sun at 18 miles per second. Half the speed of light is 93,000 miles per second. E = mc2 . Newtonian physics predicted the precise orbits of the planets. Einstein's theory predicted Mercury's orbit better than Newton's. The deflections of light observed was...