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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.
Rating: 
Summary: Historically useful, but an useless introduction
Review: As an introduction to the theory of relativity this book fails hilariously. However, as a historical reference of how it was developed this book is very important and shows that the theory of relativity was not a magic idea from Einstein's mind, but a theory developed during years by many physicsits as George FitzGerald, Hendrik Lorentz, Henri Poincare, H. Minkowski, Marcel Grossman, David Hilbert and others. Compared to other books that explains the theory of relativity, such as Joseph Schwartz' "Einstein for beginners", this one is really difficult to understand (not impossible of course, however difficult). The deduction of Lorentz' transformation in the appendix is also very confusing compared to Schwartz. Well, this book is a bit old compared to Schwartz' book, thus it is normal to find out that the way Eistein expose the theory is hard compared to a more recent book. Also if you are an Einstein admire this book is nice to have a deeper view of what he thinks of the development of the theory.
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Summary: Great for the young student of Physics
Review: Great for the young student of Physics!This is an excellent book, written in the "Master's" own style and faithfully translated from the German by Robert Lawson. The translation dates to 1920 and new readers may find the English a little quaint, but for all that, it is a great effort at presenting in "plain speak", the concepts of Relativity. The book starts with a lucid explanation of the Train and Platform example of Galelian Relativity and then proceeds to highlight the incompatibility between the principle of relativity and the constancy of the speed of light. Without encumbering the reader with the Maths (found in the appendices) the ideas of time dilation and length contraction are discussed. The General Theory is developed via a fine example: that of an observer on a rotating disk. This is a good complement to the overtly scientific/mathmatical books on the subject. Unfortunately,, despite its many qualities, just like many of the alternatives of this genre, Einstein's book does not fully succeed in explaining the complex concepts to the lay reader. Rather, this is a nice little book that will be suitable for a good calibre Maths/Physics student in the sixth form/high school.
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Summary: Not Just science
Review: I won't lie to you, the theory of relativity is not simple. The special relativty is easily understood, yet it is a topic covered in university as an speciality in majors more involved with physics, and general relativity is coverd in masters. Both topics can be quite esoteric, and the mathematical explanation for the relativistic deformation of the time-space due to speed uses Fourier's transforms, so most people will have to just have faith in what Einstein is trying to explain. However, he does simplify the subject enough, so anyone with a basis of physics could grasp some of the most important ideas behind his theory. Furthermore, this book is important in the fact that by proving that relativity was a real fact in physics, the shape of the world in the twentieth century took a great change. I believe that without Einstein's work, the nihilism porfethized by Nietzsche, toghether with the despotic regimes that the will of power would create guided by deviations of the "übermensch" might not have com in such strenght as it did.
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Summary: Straight from the horse's mouth
Review: I've used this book with my high school students - very slow going. You can definitely understand the issues involved in relativity, even as a layman, from reading this book, but THIS IS NOT AN EASY READ! A mature, dedicated reader will get through this book. I'm proud of my high school students for struggling through this book, but readers at that age mostly do not have the intensity to really appreciate it.
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.)
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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.
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Summary: Great Book
Review: This book is very interesting glimpse of where einstein was coming from. this is a book that is still interesting if you understand relativity, because einsein gives a very thorough look at the circumstances surrounding the development of the theory. Including a delineation of the specific problems with newtonian mechanics which neccesitated development of the special and general theories of relativity, which I have never found in any other book on the subject. He also does a wonderful job of explaining why the special theory was insufficient, and the steps with which he developed the general theory of relativity. This book is a look at the most wildly hyped theory of the twentieth century, and explains it so that almost anyone should be able to understand it and also undestand why Einstein once said he spent the vast majority of his life trying to understand quantum mechanics, and not relativity.
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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: 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.
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