Would you like to know the truth about Albert Einstein from a friend who really knew him? Much of what is reported by some historians about his life is consistent with his personal writings, but much is conjecture based on people who never knew him, and they simply made up whatever the writers thought he must be like. After nearly two years of personal conversation directly with Einstein, I have tried to recall specific things about him which may be of interest to you. He needs to be remembered for the truth about his contributions to the whole world. He was indeed a "rare bird"

My Time With Einstein

By Stanley R. Cohen

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Stanley R. Cohen, Ed.D
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-6263-4

Contents

Acknowledgments.......................................................viiIntroduction..........................................................ixChapter I: Getting started............................................1Chapter II: The Science of Imagination................................21Chapter III: The Non-Scientific Side..................................29Chapter IV: Albert and Nature.........................................53Chapter V: The Economist..............................................59Chapter VI: The Psychologist..........................................69Chapter VII: Einstein's Views on the Jewish Faith.....................75Chapter VIII: The Future of the World.................................83

Chapter One

GETTING STARTED

It is well recognized that Albert Einstein probably contributed more to society than any other human being. He was born in Germany in 1879, and lived in a hostile environment because he was Jewish and his ideas were considered ridiculous. His concepts just didn't fit the laws and theories in traditional physics, and most of the classical scientists at that time wrote him off as a nut case. They were all wrong. Even in the scientific world today new ideas like using stem cells to replace damaged muscle tissue in the heart were initially rejected. Changing blood type in black children with sickle cell anemia by replacing their bone marrow was first considered over the top. It took 20 years to accept the notion that body organs could be replaced from donors with matched DNA. Only 50 years ago did we accept the fact that babies born less than two pounds could be nourished in a special environment and in fact could survive and become normal. I believe resistance to change is a result of some very conservative thinking which has had a devastating effect on new ideas. Instead of saying "why" we need to learn a new phrase, "why-not"

It is also well known that Einstein suffered with dyslexia as a child and as an adult. He was an extremely slow reader because of his dyslexia, and because he didn't start talking until he was about three years old, and because he was left-handed, his mother thought he was retarded. I saw him read using his left finger as pointer. When his mother tried to talk to him, his speech was quite slow, and she was convinced he was the dummy of the family. What a mistake this was!

Einstein told me how much he hated school because "it oppressed him". His report card from a Catholic school he attended in third grade was not very good, and he was considered a poor student. Some authors have reported he stayed in school until he was ten years old. He told me he left school going into fourth grade. His mother did some home schooling after third grade, and Max Talmay whom he befriended got him materials in physics and geometry to study on his own. His mother also got him a violin because he loved music, and she was an accomplished pianist. Even after some temporary setbacks, he kept his sense of humor. I met him in 1946 when he was 67 years old, and when I shared some humorous stories from my Rutgers University dormitory friends, he usually had a good belly laugh. In spite of losing members of his family in the war, he maintained his sense of humor the two years I knew him.

Although other writers have mentioned his other early schooling, the only formal education that he ever talked to me about was when he was 18 years old. He had applied to the Swiss Institute of Technology where he was twice rejected because of his slow reading problem. He was finally admitted, but he told me it was a terrible experience. He made me realize that all of the so called experiments I had done in my own physics, chemistry and biology labs were not real experiments because the results were already known. He compared it to baking a cake from a cook book. A real experiment would have been changing the ingredients to see what would happen. Had I done this in my science classes, I would have failed the courses. Much of the literature about Einstein's life maintained he never failed traditional mathematics. However, you can only fail something to which you are exposed. He was introduced to the differential and integral formulas in calculus by reading a book, and his behavior at the Institute for Advanced Study clearly showed his mastery of these formulas. He often referred to the calculus as arithmetic, and he also learned algebra and geometry the same way. One afternoon he showed me his analysis of the Pythagorean theory and why it was true, but he refused the traditional logic leading to the formula. When I asked him about his love life, he saw himself as a failure in two marriages and a failure as a father to his two biological sons and one daughter. He really did not like to talk about his relationship with his wife or his children. However, one Friday afternoon he explained to me that both of his wives were constantly judging him, and he resented all the "should and should-nots" after sharing strong feelings he had for them. It was bad enough having the scientific world being critical of him as a person, but it was worse having this criticism coming from his family. His feelings were very strong, and he owned them, and he just wanted people close to him to understand without prejudice. He divorced his first wife, and he promised to give her the money he might get from winning the Nobel Prize. He lived in Princeton with his second wife until he died. I was angered when I read another writer's perception that Einstein was a "ladies" man. I can assure the whole world this was not true, and I defy anyone to support that fact. I even asked him one day about the rumor, and he replied, "I wish that were true". However, that false idea may have come from his position that women should be allowed to attend Princeton University which at that time was for men only and from wealthy families at that. He wondered why women in this country were not valued as much as men and made lower salaries in positions of equal responsibilities. In the place of his birth, there were women doctors, dentists, engineers and scientists which he did not see in America. At that time, women in the United States were either guided toward teaching or nursing. In fact, the first female physician in the America graduated from Johns Hopkins in the early twenties. When she was admitted, Hopkins built her a separate bath room, and she had to study anatomy apart from the men.

I was fascinated by his concept that what was already known in science based on what could be observed represented a tiny amount of what really existed. He was certain that the realities of our universe existed even though they could not be observed. He was challenged many times concerning his objection to quantum mechanics because he believed reality should not be measured by concrete observation alone. He believed that faith in a concept was as good as actual observation. This puzzled me because his view seemed in conflict for his search for absolute certainty. Even his concept of God was based on his faith. He told me once that it did not matter if God really existed, but it was a necessary belief to explain predictable forces and patterns in the universe. He maintained that what he called soul energy was in every living thing. To him, the body was just a vehicle for that godly soul, and at the moment of death the body dies, but the soul returns to the global mass of all souls. He convinced me that if I nourished my soul with...