I Am a Part of Infinity

A spiritual biography of Albert Einstein that reveals for the first time the scientific and religious origins of his ethical philosophyNearly everyone is familiar with Einstein's scientific accomplishments-but few know the truth of how spiritual philosophies shaped his life and work. Scientists and biographers have treated Einstein's views on the eternal as vague and metaphorical. For Einstein, however, spirituality and science were a vital pairing. In I Am a Part of Infinity, Kieran Fox examines for the first time the strength and the subtlety of Einstein's spirituality. Revealing the Greek philosophies and East Asian religious teachings that Einstein revered, Fox traces, for example, how Pythagoras and Democritus allowed Einstein to conceptualize mathematical simplicity and the power of the mind, and how the Upanishads and Jainism shaped his views on the nature of the universe and morality. Fox shows how Einstein melded those ideas with his science to create one all-encompassing philosophy, in which the cosmic oneness of his work in physics was inextricably linked to his pacificism and his moral commitments to all life. Drawing on little-known conversations, recently published letters, and new archival research, I Am a Part of Infinity shows, for the first time, what Einstein really believed, and why his perspective still matters today.