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Diary Illuminates Einstein's Last Years
b00le writes "Several sources carry versions of this story about the diary of Johanna Fantova who shared much of the last years of Einstein's life (and cut his hair) and witnessed his kindness and poltical activisim. The diary does not seem to have been translated from the German yet, but the site has extracts. According to this, Fantova tried to publish the diaries herself and of course failed to find an agent."
perhaps I'm being over-cynical, but I can't help wondering if this is a hoax.
Einstein calling Heisenberg "a big Nazi" is surely too funny to be true. The mistake mentioned in the article (reporting Einstein phoning his sister several years after she was dead) doesn't sound like the sort of mistake a real diarist would ever make.
thoughts, anyone?
If she is the one who cut his hair, I wonder what her writings must be like. Einstein, even on portrait day, looked worse than I do on my worst bed head day. It took so long to transcribe her notes because of her shaky hand?
Very interesting... I wonder how true it is. I have my concerns with the "Big Nazi" comments. From many published reports, Einstein was a bit on the touched side on social issues, but this seems a bit questionable. Having access to the "full diary" should prove the authenticity of the whole thing. I have my doubts about it, and getting excepts only raises my suspicions.
If you read the article, it appears to be for lack of trying on Fantanova's part. She didn't make it widely known enough that she had one, it says.
was a UN with teeth. Violate the charter and we'll come after you. Much more effective than the current talking sessions, which no violator ever takes serious. Now *that* would improve the world.
:)
forget the e=mc^2 stuff
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Please see Young Einstein for some amazing revelations about our favorite frizzy professor's childhood in Australia.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
One of the more interesting things about society in the United States is the way in which "dangerous" ideas can be neutralized and forgotten without actual censorship. Jack London, Helen Keller, and Albert Einstein are good examples of people whose political opinions were successfully submerged in the popular consciousness by elevating the non-threatening aspects of their life and work.
An example from the right rather than the left would be Charles Lindbergh.
I remember being surprised by my discovery, in the sixties, that a) many people of my parents' generation at least recognize the tune and words of The Internationale, that virtually nobody from the sixties generation does--not even the real lefties--and that people from my parents' generation were largely unaware that people from the next generation don't know it. A song and a political emblem, into the memory hole without benefit of telescreens.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
...was "I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity."
It's surprising that someone so respected would need to chase a carrot like that. It sounds like that solitude extended indefinitely. Maybe extreme genius demands solitude.
Any thoughts?
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
Here is the rest of the story. I linked to only one the first time. Sorry.
What exactly does that mean?
It fills me with deep apprehension to see how people who might otherwise rail against "PC revisionism" will dismiss something like Einstein's various social causes, putting them in a basket like "he was a little 'touched'" to keep them at a safe distance. Heisenberg had worked for the German war machine trying to develop an atom bomb. Do we not think Einstein could possibly have strong feelings about that? Whether this diary's legit or not, that particular point doesn't seem over the edge to me. Over-candid, maybe -- as might happen in a diary...
It' ain't just Einstein (who was an avowed socialist by the way -- boo!). A worse and weirder thing has happened with Helen Keller. Helen Keller was a hell of a woman; Winston Churchill called her "The greatest woman of our age." We've made her a curiosity, a freak show -- because we're airbrushing out her entire adult life so that she's safer for fifth-graders to read about. Okay, so these two people were socialists, and I'm not. (I'd be more of a Keynesian, along the lines of Richard Nixon, economically.) Opinions far from our own aren't inherently nuts, and we don't have to be scared of them -- do we?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Heisenberg's motivations are still arguable. After the war, an amazing number of people suddenly "did not sympathize" with the Nazis, although they worked diligently and enthusiastically for them. Heisenberg may have been a "big Nazi." Wasn't Einstein personally acquainted with the man, and in a position to form a legitimate opinion based on evidence we may not have seen?
Personally, I think Heisenberg was probably sabotaging the Nazi effort, but none of the evidence is compelling. He was such a convincing collaborator that it's hard to tell.
Heisenberg's actions may have intentionally slowed down the Nazi pursuit of the atom bomb, or perhaps he was actually trying hard, and just wrong or (un)lucky. All these men were perfectly fallible.
We're responsible to everyone for what we do, and who we pretend to be and. We're responsible only to ourselves for who we are.
Fiction is a good arena for the unknowable. Kurt Vonnegut's _Mother Night_ is a lovely book about these very problems and even the movie is great.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
Einstein spent last years telling bad jokes to depressed parrot: diary
On a tagential, but seemingly related note. Hao Wang's book "A Logical Journey: From Gödel to Philosophy" is a similar type of book. It's really more of a historical source, not a book. The author merely collected and recorded facts based on Godel's life. Godel and Einstein spent 20 years together at the Institute for Advanced Study. Often times they would take walks together and they seemed to be good friends. Also, Godel seemed to have had an active interest in cosmology, prehaps presceint of the rigourization of cosmological models in the post-Einstein era.
Godel lived a rather mundane life. He was no Feynman. He was quiet. While Einstein seemed to enjoy, if not ask, to be treated as a scientific god, Godel seemed to hate such exclusion. Often times, mathematicians and philosophers feared to even talk to the great Godel. Even Von Nuemann (who seemed to have little respect for Einstein [see Ulam's autobiography]), referred to Godel as the greatest philosopher since Aristotle. Facts, as found in Wang's book, such as Godel's fondness for "chicken and biscuits" or Godel spending Sunday mornings in bed reading the Bible are mundane. However, these men were mundane. They're world was completely of the mind. Often these men quirks are the only really interesting things about them. They were virtually indisguishable in public. In fact, in Martin Davis book, "The Universal Computer" Davis' wife exclaimed, upon first seeing Einstein and Godel together at Princeton, that see had seen "Einstein and his lawyer".
In the case of this woman's diaries, I'm more concerned she deified Einstein, thus tainting her view. I believe the publishers may have been right in this case. Her diaries probably read more like notes. They probably would have requried some extensive work or further research before being worthy of a book.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
Heisenberg's Physics and Beyond is, on the other hand, a brilliant chronicle of the development of quantum physics. Heisenberg's disgust at faculty loyalty oaths and other trappings of National Socialism is clear. Heinsenberg also records the brilliance and humor of his colleagues, like Wolfgang Pauli, "There is no God and Dirac is His prophet!" Heisenberg is quite gracious to Einstein, so it is sad Einstein couldn't rise above his petty bitterness to all things quantum (what a cranky idiot savant).
Since this is Slashdot, there is of course no need to urge folks to read Stan Ulam's Adventures of a Mathematician. Y'all got it next to Feynman on your shelves, right?