Word: einstein
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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This week the longest (328 pages) English-language biography of Physicist Albert Einstein, now the most distinguished resident of Princeton, N. J., was published by H. Gordon Garbedian, a science writer on the staff of the New York Times.* Brightest spots in Mr. Garbedian's book are the Einstein anecdotes. Samples...
...Einstein was ambling down Princeton's Nassau Street one day, waving amiably to tradesmen who gawped at him from doorways, when a Greek restaurateur timidly accosted him, asked him what lay outside the bounds of the known universe. The professor grinned, said: "Ja, do not worry; you don't go out there...
...Some years ago Einstein visited California's Mt. Wilson Observatory, which houses under a vast rotatable dome the largest (100-inch) operating telescope in the world. Einstein was standing on a horizontal flange attached to the dome, when an astronomer flipped a switch and the dome began to turn, Einstein with it. The physicist did not realize that he was moving. Like most visitors subjected to the same experience, it seemed to him that he was stationary, that the whole central well of the observatory (solidly anchored through concrete pillars to bedrock) was turning in the opposite direction...
...Einstein walked into a League of Nations hall in Geneva where a peace conference was going on. He had been officially invited to attend. But an anti-Semitic delegate jumped up and shouted, "Who sent for him? What does he represent? Whom does this Jew represent?" A U. S. newspaper correspondent slapped the delegate's mouth. Einstein was so angry at this display of race prejudice that he went back to his hotel, made horrid sounds on his violin until his feelings were soothed...
...idealistic Scientist J. S. Haldane, nephew of the encyclopedic-minded Viscount Haldane who became Britain's Lord Chancellor, John B. S. Haldane was born 46 years ago in Scotland. Growing up in an atmosphere of intellectual curiosity and freedom, he did not find Einstein unintelligible or Freud shocking. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, served in France and Mesopotamia during the War, was twice wounded, became a captain. He said he enjoyed shooting Germans. Nowadays he is known as an authority on poison gas, is an Air Raid Precautions expert...