Einstein's Universe: The Layperson's Guide

The classic account of how the greatest mind of recent times altered the way we see the world, now updated with a new afterword for Einstein Year, which celebrates the centenary of his first groundbreaking ideas.
The universe that Albert Einstein built is an astonishing skyscape of bent starlight, high-speed astronauts, black holes, stormy galaxies and exploding spacetime. Today it seems more certain than ever that we live in the cosmos he described - yet often we still fail to understand it. Nigel Calder's landmark book has been acclaimed for making Einstein's theories of relativity accessible to the public for the first time. It unlocks the secrets of an astounding vision of the world. How can a black hole keep you young? Why does a falling person feel no force of gravity? Answering these and many other questions, Einstein's Universe makes plain the debt that humanity owes to the man who completely reshaped our ideas of energy, time and motion.

Nigel Calder is a prolific science writer who has contributed to both British and American publications, including Science and Nation. He wrote the script for the television series EinsteinÂ's Universe. His book Magic Cosmos was shortlisted for the 2004 Aventis Science Book Prize.