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Some candid Einstein snapshots: The Hindu
Los Angeles, Apr 27: She had, perhaps, one of the toughest jobs in science. Johanna Fantova was faced with the task of untangling a web of matter and space and of imposing order on a knot of mass, energy and length which enthralled scientists for decades. Her job was to cut Albert Einstein`s hair.
Los Angeles, Apr 27: She had, perhaps, one of the toughest jobs in science. Johanna Fantova was faced with the task of untangling a web of matter and space and of imposing order on a knot of mass, energy and length which enthralled scientists for decades. Her job was to cut Albert Einstein's hair.
The Czech map curator, 22 years younger than Einstein, shared the last years of his life with the scientist. They would sail together, speak frequently on the telephone and discuss the many visitors the ailing Einstein received at his home in New Jersey. The relationship is revealed in a 62-page diary written by Fantova and discovered among her papers. Written in German, it covers the last year-and-a-half of Einstein's life, up to April 1955.
In her introduction, Fantova says she intended to ``cast some additional light on our understanding of Einstein, not the great man who became a legend during his own lifetime, not on Einstein the renowned scientist, but on Einstein, the humanitarian.'' Without her candour it is unlikely that we would have known about Bibo, the parrot. Einstein received it as a birthday present from a medical institute. When he decided it was depressed he would try to cheer it up by telling it bad jokes. The parrot recovered but rewarded the scientist by developing an infection and passing it on to him.
Fantova reveals that, far from being isolated in abstract introspection, Einstein was interested in current affairs. He was critical of the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson, and defended the nuclear scientist, Robert Oppenheimer, who led the U.S. effort to build the atomic bomb, against attacks by Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Einstein was succinct, labelling himself a ``revolutionary'' and declaring: ``I am still a fire-spewing Vesuvius''.
He would often feign illness in order to avoid the large numbers of visitors who arrived at his home in Princeton. But he could do nothing to get away from the well-wishers and letter-writers. ``All the maniacs in the world write to me,'' he told Fantova, although he always replied courteously. Thus, the correspondent eager to convert him to Christianity was politely rebuffed, while another autograph-hunter received her wish.
On April 10, 1955, eight days before his death, Einstein spent a day attempting to compose a radio message for the people of Israel. He failed. ``He claims he is totally stupid,'' writes Fantova, ``that he has always thought so, and that only once in a while was he able to accomplish something.''
He was also concerned about his reputation in the scientific world, where by the time of his death attention had moved away from his Theory of Relativity. ``The physicists say that I am a mathematician, and the mathematicians say that I am a physicist,'' he told Fantova. ``I am a completely isolated man and though everybody knows me, there are very few people who really know me.''
Fantova and Einstein met in Germany in 1929. Her husband's parents organised a Prague salon, the Fanta Salon, which included Einstein and Franz Kafka among its guests.
Einstein travelled to America as a refugee from Nazi Germany in 1933. Fantova reached Princeton in 1939, where Einstein employed her to organise his personal library. He, together with J. Edgar Hoover, who later became the legendary Director of the FBI, provided a character reference for her application for U.S. citizenship. Fantova died in 1981, at 80. - Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004.
In her introduction, Fantova says she intended to ``cast some additional light on our understanding of Einstein, not the great man who became a legend during his own lifetime, not on Einstein the renowned scientist, but on Einstein, the humanitarian.'' Without her candour it is unlikely that we would have known about Bibo, the parrot. Einstein received it as a birthday present from a medical institute. When he decided it was depressed he would try to cheer it up by telling it bad jokes. The parrot recovered but rewarded the scientist by developing an infection and passing it on to him.
Fantova reveals that, far from being isolated in abstract introspection, Einstein was interested in current affairs. He was critical of the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson, and defended the nuclear scientist, Robert Oppenheimer, who led the U.S. effort to build the atomic bomb, against attacks by Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Einstein was succinct, labelling himself a ``revolutionary'' and declaring: ``I am still a fire-spewing Vesuvius''.
He would often feign illness in order to avoid the large numbers of visitors who arrived at his home in Princeton. But he could do nothing to get away from the well-wishers and letter-writers. ``All the maniacs in the world write to me,'' he told Fantova, although he always replied courteously. Thus, the correspondent eager to convert him to Christianity was politely rebuffed, while another autograph-hunter received her wish.
On April 10, 1955, eight days before his death, Einstein spent a day attempting to compose a radio message for the people of Israel. He failed. ``He claims he is totally stupid,'' writes Fantova, ``that he has always thought so, and that only once in a while was he able to accomplish something.''
He was also concerned about his reputation in the scientific world, where by the time of his death attention had moved away from his Theory of Relativity. ``The physicists say that I am a mathematician, and the mathematicians say that I am a physicist,'' he told Fantova. ``I am a completely isolated man and though everybody knows me, there are very few people who really know me.''
Fantova and Einstein met in Germany in 1929. Her husband's parents organised a Prague salon, the Fanta Salon, which included Einstein and Franz Kafka among its guests.
Einstein travelled to America as a refugee from Nazi Germany in 1933. Fantova reached Princeton in 1939, where Einstein employed her to organise his personal library. He, together with J. Edgar Hoover, who later became the legendary Director of the FBI, provided a character reference for her application for U.S. citizenship. Fantova died in 1981, at 80. - Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004.