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Einstein- Husband, Lover and Father
evilsheep writes "A large collection of correspondence shedding light on Einstein's personal life and perspectives was made public today by The Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Spanning almost 3500 pages, the correspondence encompasses letters to and from his first and second wives and children between the years 1912-
1955.This newly released batch of letters fill in details to create a 'higher resolution' image of Einstein beyond what was previously known of his personal life. The collection has been in the Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University for many years, but was not made public in accordance with the will of Einstein's stepdaughter, Margot, who specified that they not be revealed until 20 years after her death. Margot died in July 1986.
Einstein wrote almost daily letters to his second wife Elsa and to her daughter Margot whilst away from home about delivering and listening to boring lectures, playing music with friends, or trying to stop smoking."
So Albert Einstein is actually human. For all these years, I thought he existed only in Apple's "Think Different" advertisements.
"You don't have to be Einstein to know smoking is bad for you... but it doesn't hurt!"
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
It's in a journal, so it's probably true. I wonder if this is actually provable with dead-tree sources (the article the poster cites is not on the web).
For more information, click here.
CNN also has an article on the release of the letters:e instein.reut/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/10/israel.
Looks like he wasn't a true geek! He had six girlfriends in addition to his wife.
But why is the rum gone?
I thought PBS already made a better resolution picture Einstein when they began broadcasting their shows in HD. Does this mean I can get him in 1080p now?
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Didn't Einstein have a daughter from his first marriage that basically disappeared, and whom nobody really knows what happened to her? I always found it curious that such a smart man could also have such a lousy private life.
Do these letters say anything about her?
-> I dislike sigs...
Actually, these new documents seem to change his public image for the better. He used to be known as a completely uninvolved and irresponsible father, but these documents show that at least later in life he really cared about his second wife and one of his kids. People change as they get older. Einstein certainly wouldn't have signed the famous letter to Roosevelt advocating the development of the atomic bomb after the war - although one could certainly argue about whether that means anything.
http://www.pbs.org/opb/einsteinswife/
r/e Mileva Maric
I found this fascinating - Einstein is an iconic figure, so criticism is not taken well, but I found these to be a fascinating read. No idea how good the underlying sources are, but if there is any merit to them, he may not deserve a good deal of the credit he is given. Reminds me of Tesla vs. Marconi or Tesla vs. Edison.
Wife to Einstein:
Imagine that we would have kids together: they might be as smart as you and as pretty as me.
Einstein to wife:
But what if they would be as ugly as me and as stupid as you?
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
With all due respect to Einstein, what I really want to see today is a story covering Nikola Tesla's 150th anniversary (he was born 150 years ago today, July 10th 1856).
For those not simply trolling, another who thinks religion and science and well connected is Gerald Schroeder, who wrote an excellent couple of books on the subject. My favorite is The Science of God. Schroeder is an Israeli physicist (MIT educated if memory serves), and Genesis scholar.
His main assertions are that neither top scientists nor top theologians often understand the other, and that much of the debate stems from dogged stubornness in current beliefs - think of how the Catholic Church once thought it heresy to teach the heliocentric instead of the geocentric universe, when today we know that it's really all just a matter of perspective, but that centering the universe on Earth or the Sun is not such a great idea. He really knows his science (leaves you behind very quickly if you don't grasp relativity and cosmology well, but kindly gives you a warning before diving into the particulars) and Genesis, and tries not to take a stand on one explanation or another - simply says the two aren't incompatible, especially if you acknowledge that the point of both is to seek the truth (or Truth, your choice).
Sure Einstein had some faults, but don't we all? Instead of reading these correspondences with criticizem for his faults lets just be greatful that we have so much information on him so we can learn from his genius as well as his blunders. Here's to the memory of a great man!!!!
It's not exactly new. I was taught to not put the comma before the 'and' and that was about 20 years ago. It came as a surprise to me to find out that most people were taught the other way.
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
I personally don't care about his personal life, but I am intrigued by the idea that Marie Curie may not have been the only phenomenal woman of her generation. That women of the last century did NOT have access to a potentially phenomenal role model disturbs me.
I don't care how much pussy he got or where it came from, but my image of him is hurt IF it is true that his first wife helped him and generations of young women were deprived of a role model.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Great article! If, however, you happen to be in Switzerland at any time during the next couple of months there is an Albert Einstein exhibit at the History Museum in Bern. There are audio tours given in all languages, and it covers both his scientific achievements and his personal life. The exhibit attempts to explain his achievements in a way that uninitiated would understand, and it succeeds somewhat. For more info see http://www.bhm.ch/en/ausstellungen_sonder_01.cfm
From your link
"The Americans anticipated losing many soldiers in the planned invasion of Japan, although the actual number of expected fatalities and wounded is subject to some debate and depends on the persistence and reliability of Japanese resistance and whether the Americans would have invaded only Kyushu in November 1945 or if a follow up landing near Tokyo, projected for March of 1946, would have been needed. Years after the war, Secretary of State James Byrnes claimed that 500,000 American lives would have been lost--and that number has since been repeated authoritatively, but in the summer of 1945, U.S. military planners projected 20,000-110,000 combat deaths from the initial November 1945 invasion, with about three to four times that number wounded. (Total U.S. combat deaths on all fronts in World War II in nearly four years of war were 292,000.) However, these estimates were done using intelligence that grossly underestimated Japanese strength being gathered for the battle of Kyushu in numbers of soldiers and kamikazes, by factors of at least three. Many military advisors held that a worst-case scenario could involve up to 1,000,000 American casualties.
The atomic bomb hastened the end of the Second World War in Asia liberating hundreds of thousands of Western citizens, including about 200,000 Dutch and 400,000 Indonesians ("Romushas") from Japanese concentration camps. Moreover, Japanese troops had committed atrocities against millions of civilians (such as the infamous Nanking Massacre), and the early end to the war prevented further bloodshed.
Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on August 1, 1944. The order dealt with the disposal and execution of all Allied POWs, numbering over 100,000, if an invasion of the Japanese mainland took place.[30] It is also likely that, considering Japan's previous treatment of POWs, were the Allies to wait out Japan and starve it, the Japanese would have killed all Allied POWs and Chinese prisoners.
In response to the argument that the large-scale killing of civilians was immoral and a war crime, supporters of the bombings have argued that the Japanese government waged total war, ordering many civilians (including women and children) to work in factories and military offices and to fight against any invading force. Father John A. Siemes, professor of modern philosophy at Tokyo's Catholic University, and an eyewitness to the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima wrote:
"
Einstein actually did almost no work on the Atomic Bomb project. Had he not wrote the letter it may have been dropped six months later but it would have been developed. Are the deaths of over 200,000 people tragic? Yes. Is the choice between 200,000 plus deaths and possible over a million deaths anything but terrible? Had Japan not attacked China, had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbor, or had Japan surrendered when it was clear the war was lost then those deaths would have been avoided.
The simple truth is that the decision to develop and to drop the Atomic bomb was made by human beings. Roosevelt and Truman are regarded as two of the greatest leaders of their time. They where also known for being extremely humane men.
Didn't the government of Japan have the responsibility to protect it's citizens? Shouldn't they have made decisions that would been in the best interest of their population? In the end all the death of Japanese citizens where the responsibility of the Japanese government.
I guess it is easy to feel superior to the men that decided to drop the Atomic bombs than to try to understand why it happened.
So I take it that you would have chosen to over one million dead from Japan, China, Korea, UK, US, and Indonesia over dropping the Atomic Bombs? I wonder how the million plus people that would have died then would feel about you?
History is only simple if you don't think about.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
If Einstein's first wife participated in the 1905 papers and was never given credit for such an incredible accomplishment, women were indeed deprived of a role model.
Yes, women can look to Victor Weisskopf, Richard Feynman, and Wolfgang Pauli for inspiration, but it is NOT the same, especially considering that a woman, Mileva Einstein, may have co-authored the greatest physics papers of the twentieth century.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Well, it's all relative.
is that when my mother was a child, he helped carry her books for her at Princeton after school - my grandmother was working there at the time.
Basically, he was a nice guy to kids, is what I'm trying to say, no matter what other quirks he may have had.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
My father played Viola as a chile and into college. When he was in college he was introduced to Einstein and ended up getting together with him and some others several times over to play music. Einstein was a violin player and apparently enjoyed getting together with friends and young people to play music. My father, who is no 76, was in his early 20's. He said they never talked about physics or math but that they did talk a lot about music, some politics and some religion. He said Einstein was very fun...good sense of humor...somewhat of a joker...but also very intense and somewhat competitive about music if someone made a mistake.