By The Way...

Monday, January 29, 2007
8:39:00 AM EST
Hearing Nothing at the moment
The Los Angeles Times has a great story on Albert Einstein, revealing a set of letters written to him and from him in 1915, just before he published the series of papers that would cement his reputation as the greatest physicist of the 20th century -- that is to say, before Albert became Einstein. The reveal Einstein not only as the genius we know, but also as a fairly normal person who complains about his work and his colleagues and who also feels the separation that exists between him and his sons, who lived with his estranged wife in Switzerland:

Letters to and from Einstein's boys, Hans Albert, who was 11 in 1915, and Eduard, 5, his sickly younger brother who was nicknamed Tete, are particularly moving, said Kormos-Buchwald.

Around April, Hans Albert, nicknamed Adu, wrote two letters asking his father to visit. "Last Easter we were alone; do we have to spend this Easter alone as well? If you were to write us that you were coming, that would be the finest Easter Bunny for us," he wrote. "Imagine, Tete can already multiply and divide, and I am doing geometry."

Einstein replied with delight, saying the letters "pleased me very much. Did you write them nicely by yourself?"

He couldn't come for Easter, he said. But in summer he'd take Hans Albert on a hike. "Then I'll also tell you many fine and interesting things about science and much else," Einstein wrote. "Today I'm sending off a package with some toys for you and Tete…. Don't neglect your piano, my Adu."

These are simple, common letters, but in a sense they're powerful because of that -- reminders that Einstein wasn't just some fuzzy icon of science but a real human being with real human concerns as well -- genius comes the same wrapper as everyone else. Here was a brilliant mind and a great soul, and in important ways he was a flawed and frail as anyone. Putting that genius in context makes it all the more impressive, I think, and make Einstein more approachable.


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This entry has 2 comments: (Add your own)

• #2 Comment from princesssaurora 
  1/29/07 11:10 PM | Permalink

  He was an amazingly complex man... most don't get/know/ or care to know about that...
  
  be well,
  Dawn
  
• #1 Comment from monponsett 
  1/29/07 12:11 PM | Permalink

  I like more kinky stuff about old celebrities... like a diary from his girlfriend, saying "...Albert then suggested a little woof-woof."