Lee Smolin, The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next
2006
My first job after getting my PhD was in 1979 at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton. One of my main reasons for taking it was the hope of making contact with some living legacy of Einstein, who had died twenty-four years earlier. In this I was disappointed. There was no trace of his time there, apart from a bust of him in the library. No student or follower of Einstein could be found. Only a few people who had known him, like the theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson, were still there.
My first week there, Dyson, very much the gentleman, came by and invited me to lunch. After inquiring about my work, he asked if there was anything he could do to make me more at home in Princeton. I had but one request. “Could you tell me what Einstein was really like?” I asked. Dyson replied, “I’m very sorry, but that’s one thing I can’t help you with.” Surprised, I insisted, “But you came here in 1947 and you were a colleague of his until he died in 1955.”
Dyson explained that he too had come to the institute hoping to get to know Einstein. So he went to Einstein’s secretary, Helen Dukas, to make an appointment. The day before the appointment, he began to worry about not having anything specific to discuss with the great man, so he got from Ms. Dukas copies of Einstein’s recent scientific papers. They were all about Einstein’s efforts to construct a unified-field theory. Reading them that evening, Dyson decided they were junk. The next morning, he realized that although he couldn’t face Einstein and tell him his work was junk, he couldn’t not tell him either. So he skipped the appointment and, he told me, spent the ensuing eight years before Einstein’s death avoiding him. I could only say the obvious:
“Don’t you think Einstein could have defended himself and explained his motivation to you?”
Certainly, Dyson replied, but I was much older before that thought occurred to me.
p. 49-50
