Desk in the study belonging to Albert Einstein in Princeton. April (18), 1955. Photo by Ralph Morse
Albert Einstein died on the 18th of April, 1955. It’s assumed that on that day the photographer Ralph Morse was allowed to take the last snapshot of Albert Einstein’s study in Princeton, as Einstein left it.
Wikipedia describes Albert Einstein’s death:
“On 17 April 1955, Albert Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which had previously been reinforced surgically by Dr. Rudolph Nissen in 1948. He took the draft of a speech he was preparing for a television appearance commemorating the State of Israel’s seventh anniversary with him to the hospital, but he did not live long enough to complete it. Einstein refused surgery, saying: “I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.” He died in Princeton Hospital early the next morning at the age of 76, having continued to work until near the end. Einstein’s remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location. During the autopsy, the pathologist of Princeton Hospital, Thomas Stoltz Harvey, removed Einstein’s brain for preservation, without the permission of his family…”
Albert Einstein's office in Princeton. April (18), 1955. Photo by Ralph Morse
One of the fates of an immigrant, even a refuge is that you lose the dynastic grandeur of a library put across the span of the decades. Here especially, in the working office, most of the volumes are the just-in-time printed journals and correspondence, perhaps the curricula. For sure Dr. Einstein received solicited and unsolicited correspondence, his desk is full of envelopes.
In the upper right corner of the first photo, the feet of a man wearing tennis shoes. A ghost?
Blackboard in Albert Einstein Office in Princeton. April (18), 1955. Photo by Ralph Morse
I would like to learn this language.
Albert Einstein (left) and Kurt Godel taking a walk in Princeton. 1954 Photo by Leonard Mccombe.
I think going to Princeton was a relatively wrong choice for Dr. Einstein. A man developed in Berlin needs the urban density like fish needs water. The monastic setting of the remote American campuses is not conducive to life and ideas. The suburbia, the pseudo intellectual fortresses of the academia, they leave a wound that never heals, deprive a man of the unexpected.
Further reading:
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Damn, I cannot imagine what kind of things would have Einstein and Godel talked about… Politics, science, math, philosophy..? I’d give anything to learn just a little bit from those talks.
On one of their walks, Godel talked about a very slight chance that time travel backwards might be possible because of some mathmatical quirk he had found in Dr. Einstein’s work. Dr. Einsten listened very politely, but did not offer any comment.
Godel asked Einstein if he still remembers the taste of the Viennese Sachertorte.
um, Macarthur, it is only logical that the only thing albert talked about is relativity. i do not formulate anything greater than that as long as a guy like him is Concerned
Today is only a day after albert died and here i am, it is weird and great at the same time. Albert Einstein was a giant of all time, if newton literaly meant “if i have seen what lay ahead, is because i stand at the shoulders of the giant” then he meant Albert Einstein.
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