Samuel Graydon stitches together a delightful tapestry that delectably cleaves the intellectual and the indistinguishable characterizing an immortal and endearing personality. Albert Einstein is one of the greatest geniuses to stride the sands of time. A man possessed of eviscerating brilliance; Einstein upended the laws of Physics as it was wont to be comprehended when he gave it a godawful jolt. Yet for a man of such formidable intellect, Einstein was also a bundle of contrasts, contradictions, and confusions. Einstein in Time and Space is an exquisite assemblage of ninety-nine condensed Chapters, which deal with a particular event, moment, aspect or even an anecdote informing the scientific, spiritual, and social life of Albert Einstein.
With a view to securing the post of ‘Technical Expert III Class’ in the Swiss Patent Office, which came with a salary of 3,500 francs, an insecure Einstein kept the news of an illegitimate daughter secret from all his friends. His partner Mileva Maric in fact left the child when she moved in with Einstein in Switzerland. In fact, the child named Lieserl is not even a remote footnote in the illustrious history of her pedigreed father.
Yet this was the very Einstein, who was fiercely protective of women. In October 1911, was held the First Solvay Conference, a dazzling medley of some of the most incisive minds in the realms of science and theoretical physics. The mercurial Marie Curie had the distinction of being the only woman invitee. Also invited was Paul Langevin, a physicist who unbeknownst to many was also Curie’s lover. Just as the Conference was about to start, a miffed Mrs. Langevin, having gotten wind of her husband’s affair, publicly proceeded to release a series of correspondences titled “A Story of Love,” in the Le Journal. Yet when the swirling fog of controversy was assailing Curie, Einstein vociferously jumped to her rescue arguing that firstly Langevin was anyway intending to get divorced, and secondly this was a personal matter to be resolved within the confines of privacy.
Never apart from his violin, Einstein hobnobbed with philosophers, psychologists, Zionists, authors, and musicians. One of the participants in such rituals was none other than Franz Kafka. In fact, Einstein was so taken up by music that on a summer’s day while at home with his landlady’s daughter, he heard a faint sonata of a Mozart piano. Tucking his violin underneath his arm, he bolted out the door, sans a collar or tie, much to the chagrin or pleas of the landlady’s daughter, burst in on an old lady who was at the piano, instructed her to “go and playing” before accompanying her with great gusto on the violin!
By the time he was awarded the Nobel for Physics, Einstein had been nominated a staggering sixty-two times for the Prize and by eight other Nobel laureates. Unfortunately, Einstein was precluded from attending the actual ceremony in Sweden after being advised by law enforcement to stay away. His friend Walter Rathenau, the German Foreign Minister was assassinated by an antisemite ultra group who also had Einstein as a potential target in its cross hairs.
Abhorring violence, Einstein never shied from demonstrating his pacifist intent. Yet, when the world was imperiled by the threat of an atomic weapon wreaking havoc in Nazi hands, Einstein was one of the first to urge the then President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt to hasten the development of a weapon of mass destruction. This act later tore into his conscience once the full impact of the atomic bomb was felt in the ignominious bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Einstein predicably and understandably remained conflicted and polarized until the very end.
Samuel Graydon closes his wonderful book of vignettes in an emotional and evocative manner. On the 18th of April 1948, Alberta Roszel, a night nurse on duty, notices an irregularity in breathing of an ailing Einstein. She also hears him faintly muttering a few words. A dreaded and latent aneurysm soon ruptures and one of the most, if not the most, dazzling minds in all of history, is taken away. Since Roszel didn’t speak German, the last words of Einstein remain perpetually lost.
Einstein in Time and Space – Riveting, Reassuring and Remarkable!