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by Philipina A. Marcelo
I am currently engrossed in that bestselling classic, "Einstein, Life and Times" by Ronald W. Clark.
Inspired by Albert Einstein's approaching 132nd birthday and to celebrate a small success in a big stint with students, I went to hunt for an Einstein-related reading at the bookstore three weeks ago or so. By habit, and absent-mindedness (uh, ahem, don't know where I got that! Hehe...) my feet brought me to the food-related books section! :) Three-expensive-books-in-my arms later, I realized those were not what I came for to buy. So, I forced myself towards the Science Section, allowing a short stopover at Bestsellers Section, when all of a sudden a misplaced paperback caught my attention. Why? Because it was a book on Einstein! I looked at it, and I gasped... it was one of those books I wanted to buy back in my penniless College student days, which I cannot afford, of course! And I promised myself then to buy it the minute I started earning money. Of course, it took more than twenty years and a few stints at different universities before I could fulfill such promise! :)
So, after more than 20 years, a fateful circumstance reunited me with my "dream paperback"... and I hurriedly turned to "that page" that made me decide a long time ago that,
perhaps, Ronald W. Clark should be trusted to write about Albert Einstein's Life and Times... yes, even if he was not a Physicist! :) "The page" was page 37... and here's what Ronald W. Clark related that played in my head over and over again and kept me enthralled for the past 20 years or so:
"...Einstein decided on the work to which he would be willing to devote everything and sacrifice anything with steely determination which separated him from other men. On two occasions, he put down in simple words what the work was. The first came during an hour's meeting - apparently about 1911 - with the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, who pressed him hard 'with a concealed question about his faith.' Finally, in Buber's words, Einstein 'burst forth,' revealingly, "What we (and by 'we' he meant we physicists) strive for," he cried, "is just to draw His lines after Him." To draw after - as one retraces a geometrical figure.' And a decade later, walking with a young woman physicist to his Berlin University office, Einstein spelled out the same task in more detail. He had no interest in learning a new language, nor in food nor in clothes. 'I'm not much with people,' he continued, 'and I'm not a family man. I want my peace. I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.'"
Aaah... sweet!! :)
More than two decades after College, and now completely immersed in the exciting waters of the science and technology world... considering it was written more
than a decade already when I first discovered it in College, how Einstein's passionate words still leave me in complete fascination - the way it did back in the days when I had no clue what his "Special Theory of Relativity" actually meant, and how much it encompassed most physical laws known then and now - is completely amazing! That moment, I was ready to spend a fortune to own a copy of that book... as it turned out, a snack at that overrated coffee shop (if you could even call it that) called Starbucks - the hangout place for so many College students these days - is so much more expensive! Wow, my generation has degenerated so much! :( We have too many of those Wall Street, (even worse) Wall street-ish, and (worst) Wall Street big shot wannabe people these days, that's why! Perhaps, we need an Einstein to get us back on track? Hmmm... hey, a girl can dream! :)
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Photo credits: (1) My photo, (2) grabbed from http://www.mbbnet.umn.edu/doric/einstein.html - thanks.
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