Please, Mr Einstein

“You said that time doesn’t exist,” she says, “so I took the liberty of coming to see you.”

“You did the right thing,” he replies without taking his eyes off her.

She is a student with some questions about physics. And he is Albert Einstein, the man who redefined the true nature of reality in the twentieth century. More than sixty years after his death, she finds him in an office building in an indeterminate central European city, ready and eager to give a private lesson. And so begins an unusual, wide-ranging conversation. They discuss relativity, light, and space-time. But Einstein also talks about the difficulty of fame and power and how his dreams of worldwide peace were shattered. He points to a stack of photographs, books about him, newspapers. “ ‘It still goes on,’ she says. ‘I thought about putting on an Einstein T-shirt but in the end, I didn’t dare . . . ’ ‘You must be joking,’ he says, ‘I’ve even worn one myself.’”

This book is one of a kind: a surprising and delightful journey through the life and thought of Albert Einstein.