"In one of the most exciting scientific detective stories ever told, Aczel chronicles [a series of] stunning reversals in the evolution of physics.… A marvelous distillation of epoch-making science." — Booklist (starred review)

"A very readable account of the science and scientists involved." — Kirkus Reviews

Named by the American Library Association's magazine Choice as one of 1999's outstanding science titles.

Amir Aczel made higher mathematics intelligible to us in his groundbreaking Fermat's Last Theorem. Now, he does the same with a book of truly awesome scope: God's Equation.

In this new, carefully researched work, Aczel uses Einstein and his theories to explain the latest developments in cosmology, the study of the nature of the universe. He explains the links between relativity and cosmology via Einstein's "cosmological constant." It is almost as though, Aczel tells us, Einstein were God's mouthpiece, revealing the most fundamental truths about our larger environment, truths scientists are just now confirming.

And yet Aczel reveals a side of Einstein — the man — no one else has brought to light. Aczel is the first to have translated certain letters of Einstein, in private hands until just a few months ago. These letters cast a new spin on Einstein's relationship with other scientists and his early efforts to prove his revolutionary theory that a strong gravitational force will make light bend.

Amir D. Aczel, Ph.D., is a mathematician and the author of Fermat's Last Theorem, Probability 1, How to Beat the I.R.S. at Its Own Game, and a bestselling textbook on statistics. For God's Equation Aczel traveled to Berlin, where he consulted the Max Planck Institute; to the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York; to Berkeley's Lawrence Livermore Laboratories; and to the Einstein Archives in Jerusalem. He conducted some two dozen interviews with scientists and researchers for this book.