Einstein, Picasso

The most important scientist of the twentieth century, and its most important artist, had their periods of greatest creativity almost simultaneously and in remarkably similar circumstances. This fascinating parallel biography of Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso as young men examines their greatest works-Einstein's special theory of relativity and Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the painting that brought art into the twentieth century. Miller shows how these breakthroughs arose not only from within their respective fields but from larger currents in the intellectual culture of the times: specifically, the rise of photography for Picasso, various well-known practical problems in the design of electric dynamos and the regularization of railroad timetables for Einstein, and for both the increasingly sophisticated ideas of space, time, and invisible forces that made up the cutting-edge science of the day. Ultimately, Miller shows how Einstein and Picasso, in a deep and important sense, were both working on the same problem.