Rating: 
Summary: Smashing!
Review: This book takes what could arguably be deemed the most influential work ever and makes it accesable to everyone. It is as if this is really the book the creator wanted to write most and belived in the most. HIGHLY RECOMENDED
Rating:
Summary: Excelent insight straight from the author!
Review: This book makes it easy to understand some of the most interesting theories ever considered. I found that Albert Einstein has a hunger for understanding ideas that most people never dreamed of contemplating. Einstein uses simple examples to allow the reader to follow his train of thought.I take exception to his changing factors and concepts (of Newton and others) in order to obtain the results that he finds satisfactory. Forcing people to view an 'Event' from a controled, single point of reference and limiting the co-ordinate system in order to arrive at his conclusions was disheartening. Albert Einstein was a genius with prejudices like 'ordinary' people. Still I think this work is a valuable tool for the anyone wishing to broaden their horizons.
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Summary: Very interesting and well-written book
Review: This capital work of one of the most brillant scientist of the 20th century is written in this way that every high-school student can understand the base of Relativity. A must-have book.
Rating:
Summary: A Scientific Gem From the World's Greatest Genius
Review: This book is truly a scientific gem. Not only did the brilliant Einstein envision the theory of relativity, but he also felt compelled to inform non-scientists by writing this "less" technical explanation of his theory. The book's section on Special Relativity is not too difficult to grasp. However, having some basic understanding of algebra and classical mechanics is helpful. On the other hand, the section on General Relativity is quite profound, requiring the reader to imagine new concepts of space and time that are alien to one's sense of reality. Indeed, I had to read this section several times and I'm still not sure if I completely understand it. However, this is more of a function of my imagination skills rather than Einstein's literary abilities. For he uses an abundance of familiar terms and analogies to simplify the understanding of some of the more "unusual" implications of General Relativity. I would not recommend this book to someone averse to technical subjects. However, I do recommend it to those wishing to learn the basics of relativity theory.
Rating: 
Summary: Straight from the horse's mouth
Review: What better person to here about relativity than Einstein himself? This is a great book for anyone interested in relativity. I do have one problem with this book--it's a crappy translation, even taking into account the fact that it was written in the dialect of Great Britain. The language is too lugubrious for my taste.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Compilation of early 20th century Physics
Review: This is a good book, but most are under the impression that Einstein actually CREATED the content of the book.
Einstein actually compiled the physics theories of the latest German and Italian physicists and wrote it as his entire theory.
For instance, e=mc^2 was not created by Einstein, as so many people people. An Italian physicist came up with it. If you don't believe me check any encyclopedia.
Einstein suceeded in taking everyone's work and compiling it. This was helpful to the world of physics.
Unfortunately, this stuff is outdated, and Autodynamics has disproven many things that Einstein says in this book. When it came out it was already outdated. This was published in the 60s. Autodynamics disproved what is in this book in the 40s (45 I believe). If this was published in the 20s or even the 30s, it would have been a good book.
Rating:
Summary: historically good, but not the best introduction available
Review: This appears to have been written by Einstein sometime around 1916 in German. The writing process is not made clear in the book itself (whether it was dictated or co-authored, and the extent of changes by editors or translators). New editions could stand to have a forward that provides a little more context.
There are better books around for a beginner to understand relativity, but this is certainly not the worst. There is always something to be said for reading primary sources, and the book is fairly short and can be read quickly. Students may want to stick to Part I (Special Relativity) and consult more contemporary books for General Relativity.
The language is understandable for the most part. It is not as clean and simple a writing style as is common today -- in some places it is fairly elegant but in a few it is pointlessly baroque and awkward (perhaps a problem in the translation from German). Chapter 8 is an especially bad example: it could easily be written more clearly with about half the verbiage. In the older editions the translation is credited to Robert Lawson (apparently British) but this credit disappears in other versions.
For people already familiar with the history of science, there are a lot of interesting little details, such as seeing how Einstein originally presents the description of the moving train, and seeing all the people that Einstein credits as having made an important impression on him and contributions to the theory and experiments. (I find guys like Stephen Wolfram interesting as well, but it sure is a refreshing contrast to read the modesty of someone like Einstein and all the people he generously and conscientiously credits.)
Rating:
Summary: Required Reading
Review: This book provides and introduction to both Special and General Relativity without excessive use of math. While the reader does need a good collage level math background to get the most out of this book, the book does not focus on the math. The book has three parts:
1) In the first section using logical arguments Einstein takes the reader from Newtonian mechanics to Special Relativity.
2) In the second section Einstein takes the reader to the next step: General Relativity. I don't think this section went into enough dept.
3)The last section explores the greater impact of Relativity on our understanding of the universe.
4) There are a set of appendices that provide interesting details.
In my opinion this book is great start for someone who wants to get a basic understanding of Relativity. However the material is not at all complete or rigorous. Therefore anyone with serious interest in this topic should first read this, then proceed to more in-depth material. Many advanced texts are available however the reader must first obtain the proper math background.
On the whole this is a great book. I would have rated it 4 had it been written by a lesser man, nevertheless out of respect for this great man it deserves 5 stars.
Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Relativity
Review: Relativity, explained by Einstein hiself. A classic even to laymen and an idol to scientists, this book remains a treasury of knowledge.
Relativity is often portrayed as a complex and mathematical lesson. In this book Einstein explains relativity free of the mathematics and complications. As Einstein once said "Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself anymore." (Never a truer word spoken).
Perfect for professional or amatuer scientists. A classic.
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