I am tim mchenry. This is where, if you havent been here before we take inspiration from the traditions and bring them to you here in the foothills. And with traditions, that is what we are exploring. This whole season and the whole nature of what wisdom actually is. Is it knowledge . Insight . Is it understanding . This is what we are exploring. And so, we have people from different areas together to have conversations and find out what is wisdom from them and a few of them, awill be on monday to talk about intuition and a psychologist, ellen and actress joining isabel to talk about animal wisdom. She studies in the congo and look at their relationships and how they mirror some of ours. And probably not those that might be affected on Television Later tonight. But nonetheless we will move on from that. Common understanding and knowledge and what better example to choose then einstein. David bodanis has come out with a new book, a biography entitled einsteins greatest mistake a biography. If you cant imagine what that was you will find out tonight. Interesting what he writes about the nature of genius. I am going to read you a short paragraph. Geniuses come up with their first ideas, far past what everyone have to be confident that they are right. That involves they need to be subtle, making sure their breakthroughs incorporate factual information and responsive to what others are finding out. The trick is to walk the line between the supple and stubborn without straying too far to either side. Does einstein do it . We are here to find out. David bodanis is no stranger to bestsellers. His book the secret house from 1986 is a New York Times bestseller, that equation was the title of a book of his which got translated in 28 languages and also became a ballet. He will be joined on stage on another day david auburn, this particular conversation brought out mind blowing proof which won the pulitzer and tony at its time and questioned the nature of genius. The lady to bring these together, to hear and address questions a little later on, and find a book afterwords. Please welcome david auburn and David Bodanis. [applause] it is exciting, david and i have never met. I read the book over the last couple days, it is a wonderful book. You cast a wide net. It is about einstein but also many other is. You do everything with wonderful lightness of touch. I thought we could talk about the title to begin with. Dont know if you want to give it away spoiler style as to what einsteins greatest steak was. When i started reading the book i thought i knew what it was. I thought it was about his use of the cosmological constant which he famously said was his greatest mistake. It was a constant he added to one of his equations to account for what he thought was a static universe. Years later he regretted doing that but that is not einsteins greatest mistake. If you want to talk about what is. Guest where to begin . Einstein believed the universe was like a book. If it is like a book, it might be a deity or in personal forces that have always been there. The universe was like a magazine, you couldnt find a complete order. There would be Something Like this, Something Like that, it wouldnt hang together. In 1915 einstein found a beautiful, simple equation, not e mc2, something even more beautiful, something that comes once a century or once a millennium. A simple equation that predicted the universe was expanding. In 1915 all scientists told einstein the experiment was ambiguous. They thought the universe was a bunch of stars, the milky way galaxy, floating in space and beyond it there was nothing. It was like Donald Trumps brain, just empty space. Einstein had to modify and lacerate the simple equations and never liked doing it. The lamborghini, and people say that is not the right style, you have to put anchors and make this stuff ugly. He had to do it because the universe is not expanding. We 10 years later astronomers said boy they didnt say boy. We were wrong with astronomical evidence, the universe is expanding. I knew it, should have stuck to what i believed this beautiful vision i felt i was able to see, cutting through the veil of the complexity around him, simple clarity whether it was clean and pristine and exact. He got rid of all those modifications and went to his beautiful equation. Many people think those modifications were his greatest mistake but the sort of mistake many make of their life and doesnt destroy you. There is something that did destroy einstein. The psychological conclusion he drew from that. He decided he listened to Experimental Evidence even when in his heart, his intuition insisted there was a clarity, you could see behind everything. If he had held his nerve none of that would have happened. He would have been shown to be right. Around this time in the midtolate 1920s Quantum Mechanics were coming in. The study of things on the ultrasmall level, electrons, it suggests on the tiniest level everything is not smooth like an ocean wave but inexact, probabilities and uncertainty, heisenbergs uncertainty principle. You cant see an exact precise curve. Einstein said that doesnt make sense. It doesnt fit my belief the universe is beautiful like a book. I want to follow it. The experiment all evidence backs it up. He said this i know. For ten years i left something beautiful to go along with experiment all evidence and that experiment i wont do it again. That destroyed his life. For the next 30 years his mind was at a superb level but he was isolated. Physicists said stay away from einstein, ignore him, he is dangerous, he is wrong. It was a horrible thing. He was famous in public, movie stars like to be filmed with him, Charlie Chaplin and other people, he was interviewed all the time but the connections he had with other working physicists came to an end and he was terribly sad. Host you talk about how niels bohr, one of the godfathers of Quantum Mechanics, enjoyed physicists coming to study with him. The same was not true of einstein, he was a relatively isolated figure, very gregarious and warm person. That is what hurt. There are two types of person in the world, imagine friends around you which category you might want, one sword are tennis players. If you have a problem you come to work monday and you pick that is a problem, got to work it out and find other people, huddled together and work this out. Others are totally different. They come to work and meet their family and say i got a problem, give me some space, go for a walk, i need to work out of my office. Einstein was a tennis player all through his life and loved it like niels bohr when he was older. He would bounce ideas and need some quiet time and do the final putting together but he couldnt do it. He had grown up in a warm cuddly family. After this happened with Quantum Mechanics, when he felt he was holding on, he felt he was holding up like atlas, the universe he was forced to be a gopher. He was forced in princeton, new jersey, perfectly nice house, he never likes princeton, he was the city of puny demagogues on stilts. It is much better that way. It hurt his feelings. It wasnt just a matter of age. Einsteins mind was terrific. In his 50s he came up with the notion that highly separated particles can synchronize in a way the idea behind the new quantum computers. And lasers. He came up with the early concept for what became lasers as well. Guest he did his main work in astronomy, came to an end in 1915 in wartorn berlin and the next year he was resting one weekend came up with the idea that Human Technology wasnt up to it for another 40 or 50 years. Host lets talk about him as a genius, the university of chicago, trying to define genius, someone who is really smart or talented. Did you have a working definition of that when working on this book . Guest two things that separate genius, and intelligent person does something you do and they do it better. I would highly recommend you do not vote on David Bodanis to win but if i was stronger, i could understand that. Genius is different. Neil simon at his peak and a great director, mozart can be dealt, it is moving along and it is almost like a joke. It is brilliant and unexpected but makes sense. We do things you cant imagine. Michael jordan at his peak was able to do that. The other thing, think about the first part alone. A genius is also correct. What they find is right. Guest i was struck that you emphasized einstein wasnt necessarily a mathematical genius, he had talent but math was not his strongest suit. He wasnt the best calculator, he wasnt as proficient as anyone he relied on to do his work but he had almost that allowed him to see things no one else could see but worked from visual images backwards to to justify these images he had in his head. Guest he had a vision, here is a quick question. How could david and i walk parallel . Making sure they walk parallel and swerve together and hit. You think it is impossible but einstein could visualize it, walking parallel, a few yards away from each other and yet we swerve together and hit and always stay parallel. Seems impossible. How could that happen . Einstein felt it like this. Suppose david and i are on the equator. We start walking parallel, walking due north. But on the Curved Surface of the earth we end up hitting and we feel a force pulling us together even though you must be getting it wrong, i am walking due north, you are wrong, i am walking due north, einstein could see that right away. Another thing about correct genius rather than a cranky person, there is a truth to it. Einstein said he felt like a little boy inside a huge library. On the wall of a library are various books, the wall is filled with books and they have all the wisdom of the universe. It preexisted and is waiting. Normally we couldnt see it. It is dark and dim but occasionally the greatest members of our species could take one book off the shelf, pull it down, open it and they could see the waiting truth. One line might say e mc2. Another says the golden rule or sermon on the mount and we are forced on the shelf to withdraw. And when he was putting with the laser, he knew it was waiting. It pulls him. Host i loved the intellectual tennis games he played especially when he is announcing his strongest challenge to Quantum Mechanics, his conference in brussels, in 1928. When you describe every morning einstein and einstein prevents a new challenge. And at the end of the day, he thinks the thought experiment doesnt succeed in disproving Quantum Mechanics. I love the idea of these guys batting back and forth, almost playing a game with one another, the mathematics, the details come later. What they are working from is images are so precise, nonmathematicians guest totally. One of the things i tried to incorporate is all sorts of equations and Popular Science books, a university textbook, they summarize and clarify it. I tried to do Something Different. Suppose you didnt know what the content was in brussels, but what was going on, two men were friends, niels bohr met einstein, they loved and admired each other. Einstein is his famous danish cheese from copenhagen, a special thing to do. Niels bohr loved smelly things and einstein had to enjoy it so they really got on well because they were men who share that vision and in einsteins view seemed to believe the universe was a waiting book and einstein had found a man he respected as a human being, a fine, noble man. A good human being and they were sharing the same goal. The french poet said love isnt working together in each others eyes but in the same direction it niels bohr and einstein for a a while were doing that. When Quantum Mechanics started coming in, one by one people left einstein and said you talk about things being a book, god does not play dice with the universe, time after time showing so on a beautiful ocean swell, probability of uncertain the, i am sorry, we have to leave you. I was living in paris, he was of the but is one of the last people who stayed close to einstein, a brilliant and, he described what it was like, coming back from a conference, going to berlin and einstein said he will stay with me. He didnt want to let down this man who was a mentor but he thought Experimental Evidence was unambiguous, one by one everyone was leaving and he was the leader of the Quantum Mechanics side. It was a great conference, came to an end and niels bohr respected einstein, he knew if einstein could find one case where Quantum Mechanics didnt apply, einstein would be right. We wont go into the details of it but very roughly, heisenbergs uncertainty principle can be thought of like this. Trying to measure the air pressure inside a tire, i get a little gauge and the air comes out and insert the pressure but suppose as i do it david comes by and i stick to engage in in the air starts coming out, what are you doing . Measuring the air in the tire. You should look at it . I suppose i should. By the time i look at it it might say 12 pounds per square inch. When i first put it in the air has come out so it measures the wrong thing. To do it accurately i have to work really quickly but if you think about it, the second i put it in in the air starts coming out i get a figure that is slightly wrong. You open your refrigerator and see the temperature a little bit of cold air comes out and the temperature is slightly different than it was before. Heisenbergs uncertainty principle says if you are really careful however careful you are something is going to be a little bit lost as you interact with the event and the event underneath, whatever you are looking at is not going to be precise. You cant even say what the true air pressure in the tire was. To einstein that was nonsense. We are not skilled enough. He developed as you said, and apparatus of a hollow box with lights flashing inside it and when he clock ticks a little paul opens and some of the light went out. Light, you can measure how much that changes the box so if something goes out the box would go up in weight. At the exact moment the box would go a certain amount, you could see how much came out. This wasnt like the air pressure gauge. It happens to anybody touching it. Niels bohr couldnt work out what was wrong with it. If this was correct, something happening on the microlevel, that you could exactly measure. There is a photograph that night when einstein thought of that. Is dead was a contractor. Einstein worked in a Patent Office and liked building things was when his sons were little he got a matchbox and string. He was in switzerland. He made little cable cars just for the kids. He imagined this wonderful box and there is a photograph of einstein and niels were walking down the street in brussels and niels bohr is worried but einstein is smiling as can be. The last photograph i have ever seen if einstein where he was really happy because the next morning niels bohr, who was very smart, not a genius but very smart, said einstein, when that box has a little bit of light go out, the clock which we are not touching, the box if you way it goes up a little bit, ways a little less, a little bit less. Niels bohr said when it goes up, it goes up in the gravitational field of the earth and what happens then . Einstein realized the problem. By relativity einsteins relativity, time is not the same as their pressure, think of air pressure, when you are on the surface of the earth, air is quite dense but as you go higher up the air is thinner. It turns out for various reasons time works at a certain speed on the surface of the earth. As you go higher it changes its rate of advancement and it goes higher it changes it even more. As the box moves up there is a certain uncertainty in time, the time measurement isnt exact because you are different point in the gravitational field. Einsteins theory of relativity made his idea not work. He had the good grace to say okay, in this case you are right. That was the last time einstein ever tried to fight back. In his heart he knew he was right. That is biased. In his heart he was convinced he was right. If you ever argue about something strongly, with a skilled lawyer they might be more adept, do verbal twists and turns, that was einstein. It had to be. Host he had a sense of humor about himself. He understood the irony that he overthrew he was in the same position, stodgy recalcitrant objector to the new wave of budget coming along. I was struck in your book, how open he was about the humor, not as though he was blind to the situation he was in. Why did he find it so difficult to give in or join, to ally himself with people who were not overturning things he created but pushing beyond what he created. Guest the way einstein viewed it was he hadnt changed. Wasnt that he was adventurous when he was young, from his perspective Something Different happens. He had been lucky enough to see one of these waiting truths. And exact order and clarity in the universe, a long tradition of that. He to presume to say what it was, just said what it was there. His religious views tie in with this. Imagine a spectrum, Richard Dawkins over here, over here somebody in the new testament, the old testament, the manifestations they developed historically. Einstein was against atheism. He thought it was unscientific to have that view. How can you be so sure . Over here he didnt follow the details. He thought moses was a very wise man but didnt the Ten Commandments were given by god. There is a big ground in between and einsteins views were like his favorite philosopher, spinoza. You can think of it as pantheism. Patterns in the universe are significant. We dont understand what they are. We are like a little child looking at a complex thing but the complex thing is there and it is waiting. Einstein felt he was in tradition, plato, spinoza, he had been able to apply his decent mind in mathematics. He was not an a plus student. I might not be smarter than the that i have the persistence of a mule. He would work on his stuff and he felt that is what he had done and it turns out scientists had taken a wrong turn. They were going off about probability and Quantum Mechanics and eventually would return to the correct thing and the reason the climate he had, the reason he believed that is it had happened before. For tweeting years scientists are gone in a certain direction. He to his great embarrassment had gone with them, lacerated a great simple equation he had and found out he tributary, the truth was what he had intuitively seen, the truth is a clear waiting thing, that had taken ten years. Edwin hubble in california had not made certain observations maybe it would have taken 20 or 30 years. When Quantum Mechanics was coming and einstein thought it was just a tributary. After a while they will come back to the mainstream of underlying truth which i have been working to reveal. Might not be ten years, it might be longer than my lifespan but it will come down. He felt history was deep. That eventually the apparent randomness with Quantum Mechanics would be a temporary error in perception and we would move to a deeper understanding. Is that still possible . This is what is frustrating. When i was researching the book and when you read it you go, wouldnt it be wonderful if just before he died or just after like in the movies, they say we found Quantum Mechanics is true. Einstein and others said maybe there are hidden variables that seem uncertain but underneath if we see better we could see it. In the 1950s and 1960s it in Experimental Work seemed to show most of the hidden variables it seems Quantum Mechanics work really well. Our cell phones, our cameras, the internet all depend on these strange fluctuations. They are not entirely random but they are not predictable in the finest detail. Kind of a shame but universes like that. It seems different from what einstein believed. It is also possible even then, the technology we have might be shown to be just an aspect of a deeper truth. When einstein was younger, working on general relativity, beautiful ideas, a simple notion of time and space, he felt he said he felt there was a lion out there and he could touch the back of a lion and maybe touch detail, could touch the whole thing, couldnt even see the whole thing, 19131914 coming up with grim ideas. He knew it was there. That was his belief. Host i was moved by the book when you talk about a lot of people contributed to his thinking and a lot of people who assisted him, there are people who may have been just a couple years behind him. If he hadnt been there someone else would have gotten it. There is someone called henry at 11 henrietta. Guest the word computer, we know what a computer is but over 100 years ago, computer meant a woman who worked at computing things, calculating. At the Harvard Observatory harvard had a real observatory in peru and had its theoretical outside boston where harvard is and there are whole banks of computers and these computers where women. Many were highly trained. Henrietta had a plus, as good as einstein in advanced calculus and advanced calculus. In england at that time a woman couldnt open a bank account in her own name, couldnt be done. When she had these great skills she was employed as a Dell Computer at a laboratory outside cambridge. The head said something malicious, they cant get any other job . We can lower their pay rate. They had these highly trained women doing this stuff, calculating, they didnt have computers, stuck in the back. They usually take it takes two people to make you feel bad about yourself, the other one thing Something Else that you believe it. She was a tough lady. She said they could do that. It bounced off her. I am stuck here, i am in the wrong historical period. She was aware the suffragette movement, women could be stronger, there are many examples of women going to europe, becoming doctors, becoming successful, she knew it was hard but not impossible. Make the most of it. She noticed, most astronomers at the time believe everything existed within our milky way galaxy, floating there and nothing beyond. The great Magellanic Cloud was discovered in the 1700s but people thought those were just little clouds. In the mandolin the clouds there is Something Like a searchlight flashing. She began to study the rate at which the search like flashes. It was really hard. In 1894, and on may 5, 1895, try to compare and get the exact location and be content searchlights, in the Magellanic Cloud to work on its distance and you have that you are able to see the distance changing. What about other things . You can see the searchlight in other galaxies more distant. It is what edwin hubble used to detect i can now see inside these other things and where these searchlights are and how far away they are. If you say a certain brightness you can tell that is very dim, really far away. If it is really bright, they could use that. It became a yardstick to measure your way in the universe was a magnificent discovery. Host hubble wouldnt have had the tools needed to understand the universe is expanding as without Hubble Einstein wouldnt have had the understanding of the universe to decide he didnt need the cosmological constant after all. Guest exactly right. The ironies go on and on. This woman who einstein never met, if she hadnt done her work, astronomers might even today have thought the universe is static, kind of makes sense, it is a beautiful universe, the milky way galaxy, stars, people would think it was all just hovering statically. Host why do we call einstein a genius . I dont know what hubble is but there seems to be a chain of contributions here that are all essential and yet only 19 is on dormer walls. How valuable is the term genius . How useful is it when there are lots of different kinds of people making contributions that make the big synthesis possible . Guest that is a good point. Einstein with a modest man. He knew his mind was good but any people had good minds. The reason he became famous and picked out was not because of e mc2 which came out in 1926 and when was published within a Patent Office for several years or because of his ideas about astronomy and the way all of space was curved, that came in 1915 in his mid30s in berlin. He wasnt famous then. One of his ideas led to an amazing prediction. This great idea einstein had in 1915 was we think of space as totally flat. Imagine as a trampoline or in the United States marine corps you have to make your bed really flat. Suppose there is a trampoline and most people before einstein fought outerspace was like. If you take a ball bearing and flip it along it goes in a Straight Line. Makes sense. Planets go in a Straight Line but einstein had a different vision. Suppose you take a rock or small bowling ball and put it in the middle of the trampoline it will sag down. Take a barbarian shoot it along it will whip around in a curved angle like inside a pool pocket a billiard pocket. Einstein had this idea that space can be sagged down, if there is something heavy. In our solar system is that is really heavy. If einstein was right things would sag down around the sun. Invisible space would be as curved as the surface of the earth. If we are walking parallel on the curve us surface of the earth, einstein sought suppose there is a star far away behind the sun. Normally we couldnt see it. The light would never get through but if there is an invisible curve, if the sun is really heavy, space itself sags down like a rock on a trampoline, the light can whip around the senate we can see it. Normally you cant see that because the glare of the sun is too bright but suppose there was a Solar Eclipse, the sun is blocked out, you can see distance highlight with around, that image of the billiard ball, the little ball bearing, you could actually see it as he predicted this in mcmxv. Nobody could check it out. It was the middle of world war i. In 1915 a British Expedition cambridge, england led by a man named eddington sent teams to brazil. They measured a Solar Eclipse and they saw the distant stars whipped around in a curve exactly the way einstein said. The notion that space is curved sounds weird when i say it but it is actually true. You see things whip around like this business was an astonishing result. Host that was the beginning of einsteins worldwide fame. A result of that observation that catapulted him to headlines and made him an icon of modern science. I love your anecdote about the time correspondent who was sent to cover, not sure which event. The announcement they didnt have dedicated science correspondence own they sent their man in london, a golf correspondent so he had debited she covered it the way you cover a sports event with a lot of hyperbole but or less conveyed the right idea and the headline, the string of times headlines they put on the first page was really electrifying. Team came after the cataclysm of the First World War and what happened is england and germany, wave after wave of young men of sons, brothers, died, died one after another. And the navy put a decade on jeremy, after all that hatred, english astronomer took the ideas of us with german mathematician and physicist and used it not just on the ground, they looked up to the heavens and the heavens, think of your soldier sleeping on a winters day, looking at the clear skies and think that is a realm where we dont kill each other, grown up men study the same and watch the same Charlie Chaplin movies, they wouldnt attack each other. We should have something in common. In wartime that didnt happen. In 1919 people thought einsteins mind produced a unity, we can see the deepest truth. There is a difference between a priest and a profit. A priest to someone on earth opening the spigot for a divine force or extra information, guidance like a fun or channel. A profit is very different. Einstein after 1919 was seen as a profit. A profit goes up to another place, they look around in that place, they have experiences and because they are kind and decent they come back to us and share it. The beautiful photographs of Martin Luther king, he had seen something. He looked into the Promised Land and came back to us to share it. Photographs of Nelson Mandela had the same notion and that is what happened with einstein. That made him work famous that niels bohr. His ideas were superb but he played a special role. Host do you think that image of a profit like that, a genius, in the einstein blocks the path . Do you think the era when a Single Person working mostly alone could reconceptualize the whole universe could happen again today . I dont know a lot about physicists but i picture them working with giant apparatus in enormous teams because that is how the work is done today . Could there be another einstein . Guest you never know. When you think everything is predictable and says that it stays the same, james webb who ran the American Power project successfully in the 1960s and took men to the moon with technology, not inconceivable to us, apollo 11 which went to the moon had 506k of randomaccess memory, a little less than our phones. Think the genius it is to Program Everything you need with 506k. James webb said, he knew a lot about making large things work, it is what you didnt expect that will destroy you. What you didnt expect, everything is working, the saturn v, millions of interrelated parts, but something you didnt expect will come in and it is always around the corner. The same thing happened in the history of ideas, same thing happens in history. We are seeing it in the 2016 president ial election, something nobody imagined possible could come, one has to be ready for it. Although it is unlikely somebody could stand out in science the way einstein did, when he was a student in switzerland there were six physicists in switzerland, now there are hundreds or thousands around the world. It is harder to stand out but you never know and that is what makes it exciting. Could be something in this room, there could be a 10yearold in china or malaysia or south africa. We have no idea who might come with a fresh angle, go to the library, take a book off the shelves, they are not looking here. They knew einstein personally, what did you learn from them, what did you find out that you had known before . Guest the indian physicist chandra sekhar, the first to come up with a person the notion of black holes. One thing that came out was how funny einstein was. We think of this great sage. Someone with a German Jewish sense of humor. That helped us. It wasnt an affectation of pleasantness on top. It helped him. When he was a little boy of 7 he had a little sister, he was upset one afternoon, took a bowling ball and threw it at her, hit her in the head and she wrote that shows it takes the big skull to be the sister of worldfamous physicist. That sense of humor, that ability to step back and tease what is going on is exactly what he did in physics. Everyone had the notion that outerspace was flat. You flip a ball bearing, flick a planet along it will go in a straight 9 but he could imagine this curving, how could two parallel people converged . Real clever, step back, imagine it not being on a flat surface but a curved earth. That humor, einsteins sister wrote a little later when einstein was in a secondary school in munich, his teacher of greek said einstein you will never amount to anything. The sister wrote my brother never did teach greek at high school. If somebody criticizes you, you can take it to heart and say i must be unworthy or you can say whatever and switch around and see from a higher perspective. Host talk a little bit about einsteins personal life, his first wife was a brilliant woman, a collaborator with him early in their marriage. Guest we think of einstein as a funny old man with long hair. When he was young he was really good looking. Even into middleage, he was a sailor all the time. He was young, goodlooking, in a class of six or seven students, many jewish people were not allowed to go to experimental physics in germany. They were not hated in germany. They were pushed aside 2 ways consider the trivial ridiculous field of theoretical physics. So many people in this class were theoretical physicists and they were all guys, perfectly nice but one of them was a hot young woman from serbia and crossed to europe and learned good enough german and even today that is impressive. In the 1890s it was terrific and he courted her in a very curious way. He would speak to her about advanced calculus and spoke about we could live together. We could do science together, we have a bohemian love and friendship and be like student forever and i can give you a special gift which is recorded in the einstein archives. Would it be poetry . Or a recipe his mother made for him that she could make . Instead he drew something, gave it to her and she looked at it. It was his foot she had drawn an outline of his foot so she could knit socks for him so he could have nice warm feet. Their relationship in the beginning was beautiful. The night after he published, the night after he finished writing the e mc2 equation a postcard survived that einstein wrote to one of his friends. It is both of us are dead drunk under the table and he scrawled they had a good time. When they had children they had i dont want to call it sexism. That suggests somebody could suggest somebody is being mean or unfair in choosing willfully to do something bad. In 19051906 things were different in switzerland. It was assumed the woman takes care of the child. Einstein was really friendly, he would make cable cars for his kids, play the violin. Host get down on the carpet with toddlers. Guest he was handson but in a sort of way that a man gets huge credit, he played with a child for three hours are better. The rest of the week he was good. But she has to do all the stuff. She had been an okay student. Einstein was a d plus student and she was solid c plus student. She wasnt great but the do theoretical physics but she to have time to follow up. She had to change the diapers, take care of the two kids, they had a girl they gave up for adoption. After a wild people would come to the house to talk to both of them but after a while she was so busy they would come in and you have a conversation with kids crying, take care of the kids and come back, after a wild she stopped coming in. Their oldest friends, 18, 19, 20, with them she would be connected and fun and full of life but to see professor einstein, moving off to the side. That hurt her feelings and their relationship slid apart. They became nasty to each other, cold. Occasionally she wrote back letters. You remember me, dont you . Remember what we hoped for . It fell apart. 1914 they moved to berlin, it stopped. He started having affairs, with one woman in particular. A woman he married on the rebound, she was the opposite of the first one. She wasnt sensual or intellectual and it was a dull marriage. Host she was his cousin. Guest second cousin and they would be weird. In spain and germany that is considered acceptable. The problem wasnt even that they shared a culture. The problem was she was very bourgeois and very proper and he thought she would be interesting, once said elsa is no brain box which is lean because she wasnt doing anything wrong. Later he realized she was a good person and they shared a certain sense of humor but in between he started having affairs especially in the 19 teams in 1920s. He was very decent, he didnt want the affair in front of his wife, he had a separate weekend college. She said the professor is so charming with lovely women who come over, conversation and laughter and guests for dinner. He found it more fulfilling but it wasnt enough. His best friend, they met as students, had a camaraderie you can only get as young adults and stayed friends for 50 years. When einstein wrote a letter, i admired his intelligence and his kindness and our friendship. What i most admired, spent his whole life with woman which sadly fail that twice. It meant a lot to be close, youre in for connection. He briefly found the affairs, four five good years with his wife but in his heart did really find it. Especially later in life, came to america, settled in North Carolina or south carolina, younger son or older son. Guest einstein had two sons. He was often called albert and had written letters and he became a professor of hydraulic engineering. Hans albert was old men long after einstein had died. Somebody said does it bother you having einstein as a father. My father was einstein. Host we should take a few questions, things you would like us to discuss. Microphones on either side of the house. Prepare yourselves well for that but anyone who wants a crack at it. Hq. About to display my vast ignorance. Did you say einstein came up with the theory of entanglement and that is not part of quantum physics . Guest in 1935, Quantum Mechanics, if Quantum Mechanics is true, objects are widely celebrated, in part of the galaxy, the universe can still have a certain strange synchrony. If Quantum Mechanics is true separated particles can be entangled and interrelated instantaneously. How preposterous was that . It wasnt preposterous, this has been found to be true. Quantum Computers Work that way. Even the extreme, not sarcasm, when we try to disprove something, a genius is pretty good. Anybody else . So while they are preparing i will try one of my own. When you mentioned the greatest mistakes as you introduce the conversation with, david auburn, in your plaque, what was the fathers greatest mistake . How do you characterize that and did it compare in any way to einstein . Basically about the daughter of a mathematician, she is also a mathematician. The play begins a couple days after her father has died. She is aware he suffered from Mental Illness for many years and is caring for him and now, knowing she has some talent shes worried that she may be inheriting his Mental Illness. It takes place in the few days following her fathers death. In a way the play trades on a commonplace about scientists and mathematicians that comes from einstein that miraculous work is done in the use of the person and as time goes on it is harder and harder to stay on the cutting edge, harder and harder to innovate and the New Discovery belongs to the next generation. I think, in the play the emotional climax comes when the father, after many years of struggle and frustration and illness believes he has gotten a glimpse of his miraculous talent he had as a youth and that is after an illusion. The euphoria of that moment and the pain would follow, you could say it is the biggest mistake we see in the play. Can i ask if your background was another field, did you feel something you experienced or think you noticed, that translates into other realms of action . You described it beautifully in math and i have seen that from the outside, have you found it holds for people in their professional lives or personal life that desire the feeling that i have done it again, had that magic, the fire from before, and then disillusioned. Very much so. When i heard scientists talk about their greatest moments of discovery, it has been exactly the same terms artists use, the same terms people talk about when they talk about falling in love, it can be sexual. All those euphoric experiences occupy the same emotional key across all parts of human endeavor. I found that really moving. I saw a documentary film about andrew wiley, the very beginning of the movie the first thing he saw talking about it had been years working on this problem literally years. At the end of a particularly intense period of months, locking himself in a room so please work on this one problem, he felt he had cracked it and he looked in the documentary film camera, very reserved, softspoken quiet man started talking about the moment he felt he saw the solution and burst into tears on film. You could see the power of that emotional moment was still present for him every moment. So so yes, i think certainly the him calls, one of the impulses for the play came out of that feeling of wanting to convey that those the power of those emotions can come in any kind of work. It resonates with his childhood. He had his own thing and spielberg would say well, it is a very good movie. Back and in science if you repeat the same thing it is no good youve actually done the same thing. But sometimes people in art, music i know they will approach something and keep on doing it. And peace after the peace afte the years go on. And he can stay beautiful maybe once or twice and the life they will shift to another thing. The defective doing it over and over there is extra richness or angles. If he found that proof that you describe, has it meant a lot to you in a still struck by that or have you left in some way you know for other seems you want to approach again . I deftly feel things are revenant and im not always aware of it at the time. I have written three plays since proof and the only think i think that having common are they all have a young woman comforting and older man at one point or another. In different formulations. That sort of parent child for the dependency of a parent on a child and the complications that arise out of that. And i think that the longer i do this the real challenge for anyone, any artist or really anyone is that we have certain words materialist encore experiences that resonate for you. The way aresonates. When you strike them the vibrations, and interesting things happen. The challenge as you go on your career is kind of you keep trying to push away from those things that you know come easily or naturally with you. And keep expanding your comfort zone in a way. To keep pushing against the edges of the things that seem easy to you. Emotionally or artistically. Without losing contact with that somehow. You know striking that balance, i find it challenging and interesting and it is a constant struggle. And the image that you described that you may not have realized it when you were first writing it but looking back, yes, it is there again. When you say push away from it, is that aignore it or take it and place it differently . You want to pretend that you are ignoring it i think. [laughter] the minute you become too conscious of something, then it becomes a clichc or something you are returning to. Quite how one manages the mental gymnastics of that everyday when you sit down at the desk. It is something i no real insight into. And athought we often try to fulfill the unfulfilled dreams of our parents. Nothing things that theyve done but we realize that the urine for and are unable to do. My mother would have liked that things to have been different. She wanted to be a doctor. But the first book i wrote that i was drawn to was about the human body. It was interested had but we never spoke about it. But i felt i was trying to fulfill his unfulfilled dream. So that trope that you mentioned about that you saw in certain things, looking back on its utility something you wish you had been able to order a previous generation to have done your family . , yes, very much so. If you are paying you 75 for every 50 minutes of going to that very deeply. [laughter] we have 30 minutes. Absolutely know that is absolutely the case in the think that what is interesting about writing is that you dont know that when you are doing it. Correct. You figure it out, if at all only after the fact. I have written some other areas, history and recently a novel. It is tempting especially when you begin writing. The first step i wrote in my early 20s is excruciatingly embarrassing. It was just mediocre, it wasnt even bad. It was better to be humiliated just like ano, it is no good. And the problem with that, will have those troops which we talked about. 475 is a lot in manhattan that we can talk a lot. I wasnt doing that. I was just, im trying to match the surface of something. You see the dead serious style of somebody and if you have serious because you are a mimic. You trying to copy it. But the heart is not there and there is a few sequels that are very good. The godfather part two is a good sequel. They developed a fresh story. But as you know most sequels are mediocre. Like Bridget Jones part two. That touched all the right things you have the best friend, check. Right between two guys, check. But the heart is not there. Have you found that when you teach or talk about it with students, that, is it hard to get them to say yes, you need this skill but you need the heart or do they know that . Are they driven by that or frustrated because they lack that skill . It is both. But i think you know it is a challenge for anyone for students or people have done for a long time to figure out, to figure out how to probe into the stuff that really bothers you. Which is where good plays from a good novel and coming from. The things that keep you awake at night. The things that trouble you, the things that just aare under your skin and that you keep inching away at. Those are the things that if you can find a way to fictionalize them or to use them, that is the clay that you need to excavate. And thats never that easy. What i envy about playwrights is that you can have those things and if you are good you mentioned excavate. And then it is hard but you excavated. Then he transmits this vehicle and the audience can get it. So the feeling you had they can get that and you can transfer it. Einstein had certain feelings and visions and mention of the universe like a book. And all those things i talked about. The curves, the space, but the actual stuff he did, the stuff inside of his head was technical. And most people cannot share that. It would be like, if you speak a certain language and go to enter different culture or different language. And there is attitude that you want to bring across. And just cant. They wont get it. So i think many of those people feel frustrated. You know that some talk about nerdy scientists without emotions. They have emotions very much but they cannot communicate that in that language. I felt that you did convey some of einsteins ideas. This is one of the wonderful things about the book. Particularly your description of the elevator that is falling and it is either falling or in space. I will let people read it because i cant summarize it all but you do a beautiful job of giving us a gut feeling of the sensor einstein mightve had when he first led these deep deep connections among this phenomenon. Do you have another question . Yes. I love this lecture it was so inspiring. Im so excited. I was married to a physicist for 40 years. I wanted to make a couple of statements and maybe you can. Guest them. You think that genius can exist without the presence of intuition . Einstein talked about the speed of light. That that was a constant but they discovered ais there a sense of at the speed of light if you are on a train, and the light at the end of the train, if im traveling at the speed of light with that light be seen . In all of these things that these magical imageries that come even when you talk about technical stuff. For me it is like a movie in my head. In the know anything about formulas. Do you think that genius sends intuition and what makes, how do you put that together with the wisdom . His wisdom the application of that insight of knowledge . And i do believe that when youre fully focused on something your sitting in your genius. And that creativity comes. But how do you marry intuition with genius . Some people consider genius and process. And wisdom is the end result. So genius can be like a mechanism, like an elevator or a railroad or whatever taking you to a place in which wisdom exists. Is that how things work for you . I dont know. I think i feel increasingly uncomfortable with the term genius. I mean im not quite sure what it gets you in a lot of ways. I mean clearly there are people like einstein who changed the whole category. I was trying to think of an analog in theater and i think probably the best one the 20th century would be beckett. Other people have written extraordinary plays. But after beckett no one could write the same kind of plays that he wrote. That seems to be a good analog with einstein. Other than the few of those people who truly kind of are category shifters, i dont know if theyre talking about genius because it makes other people feel bad. There is a lot of that. [inaudible]. New things can be brought to our attention different ways. We are lucky to have enough with technology. The first man who developed the microscope in the low countries and to some in england, they had a magnificent ability. Instantly ordinary skills and an ordinary person could see things nobody else has. And it felt wonderful. And the moment you have certain electron microscopes, you can discover dna or athe tools can do a lot. So that is one thing when you are helped by a tool. Another fresh insight comes through just thinking. Just coming in from an unusual fresh angle. Beckett did not have different actors, he did not have, he was good at languages but many people are. He was beckett, he was really good. And then in science ait has to match the real world. Thats right einsteins approach worked really well. Because adid not match the real world. Yes we will take . You mentioned that they gave up their first child for adoption. Can you go into that . What was the reason and what happened . Yes, so einsteins family was living in italy. They had left the south of germany when he was 15 years old. But, again, not extreme but moderate antisemitism. His father was an electrical contractor. He found time after time in the city of munich his contracts were rejected by the municipal administration. Even when a private industry and things were fine. So he tried to make his mark in italy. Einstein dropped out of school. So the family was italy, einstein was in switzerland and that is when he met beautiful a and he decided to go on a holiday with her. And she had knitted him lovely cozy socks. It turns out, einstein once upon wanted to be in the swiss army and was rejected a little because of flat feet but also he had unusually sweaty feet. He needed the socks on a cold winter night. Anyway they went on a holiday and they were in a sled and they held each other and she said very closely nine was later she gave birth. They were not married. And at that time and middleclass families, he just couldnt raise a child if you werent married. And you couldnt, maybe a month, a child can be for the month early but not terribly early. Einsteins mother rejected the marriage but largely because i think she rejected anyone that would touch her husband. But he aso when she was pregnant she went back to her family in budapest. And they could not raise the child. I think this is probably great part of her later sadness. They seem to have done, the child was named elizabeth. Can they tried to do the best they could for the child. It seems they put her up for adoption and actually gave her to her one of her best friends he was married and living outside of budapest. Which if you think about is sort of a fair conference. No one knows what happened to the child after that. I believe there is a novel. She back to switzerland that got married and had two of the children. Einstein delighted in his daughter that he never saw. Later ahe said she is born tell me all about her. She had beautiful eyes like yours . I am delighted and ive never seen her. But then they stop referring to her in the letters. Possibly because it was too painful. When you are busy and things are going well sometimes the sadness in your past, you can forget about it. When you start getting another sadness in your life, all of this resonates and comes back to you. So i think as the relationship fell apart she must have dwelled in wandered the child would be six years old now, 10 years old now, something is wrong with me as a mother. Not that i blame albert but i am associating him with this terrible desolation. We will take one last question if you have one. Do you think if einstein was alive today, when you have a change of heart about the mechanics given how far its come in the real world and the way we see it in everyday life or would he hold the sense that there might be some holistic notion that the universe is kind of going ais precise and kind of, as you mentioned, the waves and so forth. It is very hard to tell. If he came of age they could be his whole personality would be different. When iq was begun in france, it was begun by people in the french, the slums in paris. People thought iq was like muscular strength. You can measure peoples iq and you would find people with low iq and give them exercises like taking undernourished children and giving them good food and exercise. They become stronger. And they found that repeatedly could raise childrens iq. That notion moved to america which was much more of a calvinist country and he was startled that it changed. That the nurses became an american iq something fixed forever. If you had it, you and this capacity and it could never change. There is something to that, clearly some people are quicker weighted than others and it seems intrinsic but there is a great variability. So einstein was born in any other family, he would not necessarily have gotten that sort of humor with his sister and imagine if he hadnt, if you have a sort of training he had at the university. Stepping out and he felt his first exam or even working the Patent Office for a few years. He got a handson, einstein once said that if he had gone straight back to academia as a grad student and become a junior professor, his career would not have worked. He would have the same intelligence and even the same humor and same training but he would have had to have published every six months. It wouldnt have had time to just leave the city and just think for a while. The great rabbi asaid once if you had a burning fire and lots of sticks, if you take one of the sticks away it will flare up brighter than ever as the fresh air hits it. If you hold it away for too long it becomes ahe needs the community. Einsteins career was a perfect illustration of that. He was trained on science. He had a nice attitude and that he was taken away from the academic world for six or seven years in the Patent Office. But before he died out and became cranky and isolated, his ideas are beginning to be accepted. If he was around today, that particular path quite likely wouldnt have happened. If it had not happened maybe he wouldnt have been einstein. David you recognize that einstein was not the best mathematician in the world. But what you did recognizes that he had this vibrant visual imagination and can see things that others couldnt see in that correlation. And we have been talking in the context of wisdom. I suppose that my duty to connect those two together because in the wisdom tradition of tibetan buddhism, you are really aand trusting with the tools to exercise the visual imagination and you can see those upstairs. That your role is really, if you want to transfigure yourself you imagine yourself as the emanation in the center and transpose yourself into that as you imagine it to be. And by that you actually discover, realize the wisdom that is within. So the painting is like a guru. A remover of shadows. That would be the light within. And so that is just the connection i think i would like to make and leave us with. Because up until 9 00 p. M. , you can also go into the galleries and export aexplore for yourselves. Thank you so much. [applause] [inaudible] this is a silk scarf, it is like in the tibetan himalayas presented to people that we wish to honor. Thank you so much. [applause] i have a sneaky suspicion that david gosch, he is getting down on bended knee and parentheses spend no less. That, you are almost praying which i think in this book is very likely and not to be translated into 20 but many more language because you have made einsteins life and in its generic contribution in a very effective and approachable and understandable. So thank you so much for that contribution. [applause] jonas upstairs if you will and we wish you a good night and then Something Else somewhere. Thank you. [inaudible conversations]