Einstein’s Mistakes

Hans C. Ohanian's forensic biography of Einstein concentrates on a side of him rarely considered: his mistakes, and the role they had in reaching his theories. Ohanian argues that many of Einstein's major discoveries were marred by errors, from serious misconceptions in physics to plain slips in mathematics. Einstein's first theoretical proof of E = mc2, for example, was incomplete and only approximately valid, and despite years of effort he never completed it; better mathematicians did. Ohanian sets these errors in Einstein's turbulent life and times, and contends that his intuition about physics carried him to his goals despite his mistakes, and sometimes because of them.

Ray Dalio said in a podcast interview that the book was a gift from people who know he likes that kind of subject.