These chapters heavily described a set of transformations that Einstein went through both in his personal life and his scientific life as a middle-aged man. The first transformation is Einstein's first time submitting to the command of an authority figure (Blumenfeld). Einstein seems to no longer be restless in his scientific life after the completion of relativity. The affirmation of his theory also seems to affect his personal life. I believe one of Einstein's bigger failures as a scientist was his stubbornness in defending relativity. As a young scientist, Einstein challenged many of the dominant theories in physics. He was a constant, creative skeptic that continually searched for truths about the world. Yet, Einstein failed to take the same critical approach with his own theory. Instead, his lack of restlessness and commitment to finding a simple, unified theory prevented Einstein from making continual major contributions to the quickly growing quantum theory.
However, it would be unfair to say that Einstein contributed nothing to science during this period. Isaacson believes that Einstein was still valuable to science at this time. I share this sentiment in relation to Einstein's debates with Niels Bohr. Although Einstein does not apply criticism to relativity, he actively challenges Bohr and his peers to defend their theories with a series of thought experiments. Although Einstein's intentions were to prove that quantum theory did not completely describe reality, he indirectly induced critical thinking from his colleagues. For this reason, I believe the aforementioned vices (stubbornness and situational skepticism) can still be overshadowed by the consequences of Einstein's genius.
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