The Evolution of Physics: The Growth of Ideas from Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta is a science book for the lay reader.

Written by the physicists Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, it traces the development of ideas in physics.

[2] Infeld collaborated briefly in Cambridge with Max Born, before moving to Princeton, where he worked with Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study.

[3] Infeld came up with a plan to write a history of physics with Einstein, which was sure to be successful, and split the royalties.

In the book, Albert Einstein pushed his realist approach to physics in defiance of much of quantum mechanics.

Belief in an “objective reality,” the book argued, had led to great scientific advances throughout the ages, thus proving that it was a useful concept even if not provable.

“This belief is and always will remain the fundamental motive for all scientific creation.” In addition, Einstein used the text to defend the utility of field theories amid the advances of quantum mechanics.