Einstein in Love

...Albert Einstein was the archetypal genius, but he was not smart enough to keep from getting his girlfriend pregnant, from messing up his marriage, and otherwise behaving as a cad to the women in his life But the story begins, like all stones, with young people falling in love...

...Mileva Marie was muse, lover, math-checker, and ultimately, in Einstein's querulous words, an "unfriendly humorless creature who has nothing from life herself and smothers the joy in life of others through her mere presence...

...Until such time as the church can move toward a more neutral stance on the interpretation of the orientation itself—at root, a difficult, but serious theological and philosophical question—most dialogue between the gay community and the church will remain one of defensive posturing ROBERT J. COMISKEY Springfield, Va The editors comment: We doubt that the official church is supporting research to eliminate gays through genetic surgery, or otherwise...

...But I also agree with those who said Gore should have asked for the statewide recount first thing, so it wouldn't look like he hand-picked the counties where he expected the most support...

...Mileva had sacrificed her whole life, her honor, her ambition, and her child for him," writes Overbye, and Albert was 22 not without honor...

...Let's get physical Chet Raymo Einstein in Love is a sad saga of how love can go tragically wrong, and how being the smartest man on earth (and Time magazine's "Man of the Century") won't save you from traveling down that woeful road...

...Many historians wonder if that "we" stakes a claim on the authorship of the relativity theory...

...Through all of these domestic tribulations, the physics went on...

...It is clear that the lovers batted these ideas about during their courtship, and that Mileva checked and rechecked Albert's work during the famous "Einsteinian spring" of 1905...

...Is the goal (agenda) of the church, while showing compassion to gays, to support research to eliminate this objective disorder through means acceptable to the church, for example, genetic surgery in utero with no adverse side effects...

...Such a thought sends tremors of fear and distrust into the minds and hearts of the gay community, who are already fighting an uphill battle for their legitimate place at the Lord's table...

...Pauline vehemently opposed her son's relationship with the poor, crippled easterner, perhaps for the same unconscious reason Albert found the girl attractive in the first place...

...DIANE LAVOS Natick, Mass...

...Further, Mileva reportedly told her father early that year, "Not long ago we finished a very significant work that will make my husband world famous...

...His excellent book may be the monument that Mileva Marie deserves...

...Two years later Albert married Mileva, but by then the bloom was off the rose...

...Probably not...

...He called her Dollie...

...From an early age, she was mathematically precocious and determined to succeed...

...There is sense in which the women in Einstein's life were certainly instrumental in the genesis of relativity...

...The girl was Mileva Mane, delicate, brooding, brilliant, from the "wilds" of eastern Hungary, born with a hip abnormality that caused a lifelong limp...

...Albert and Mileva had potentially successful careers before them when in May 1901 Mileva expressed her fear that she might be pregnant...

...In 1905 the twenty-six-year-old Einstein published three papers that shook physics to its foundations and won him a reputation as a whiz kid of European physics...

...It was all she got for the years of devotion and inspiration...

...Chet Raymo teaches at Stonehill College in Massachusetts, and writes a science column for the Boston Globe...

...Voting rights Your stand against the bombastic activities of the Bush campaign was courageous, ("Votes Count," December 15, 2000...

...Meanwhile, he was falling in love with his cousin Elsa, who subsequently became his second wife...

...The editorial echoes the sentiments of many Americans, even beyond partisanship, yet speaks volumes about our resilient, but battered democratic system of government and the primacy of the vote...

...She was among the first girls to sit beside boys in high school classrooms of the Austro-Hunganan Empire...

...Dennis Overbye's engaging tale is partly a biography of the young Einstein, partly an exposition of early twentieth-century physics, and—best of all— an account of that mysterious place were heart and mind and flesh tangle in ways that no past, present, or future Einstein will ever unravel...

...Albert too appreciated the darkly sensual girl who rejected bourgeois pretensions and shared his passions for physics and mathematics "I'm so lucky to have found you," he wrote Mileva in a letter, "a creature who is my equal, and who is as strong and independent as I am...

...Does the petite girl with dark eyes and probing mind deserve to be called the co-author of relativity...

...Almost at once, however, the marriage began spiraling downward Two more children were born of the union, but Albert and Mileva became increasingly estranged...

...Mileva met Albert at the University of Zurich in Switzerland...

...she called him Johnnie...

...What was Mileva's role in the development of the theory of relativity...

...There were other women too, including Elsa's adult daughter Use...

...23 (Continued from page 4) it is a virtual certainty that, given the rapid advances in these fields, we will know with a high level of confidence its causes within the next several decades...

...Don't worry— you are my dear, good sweetheart whatever may happen," wrote Albert He then moved on to his deeper concern' "I am not very satisfied with my theory of thermoelectricity...

...The pregnancy ended Mileva's hopes for a career in physics...

...Her girl child was born in Hungary, was left there when Mileva returned to Switzerland, and soon disappeared to history...

...Overbye presents the available evidence, and it seems clear that Albert was the source of the revolutionary new ideas...

...It was the beginning of the theories of special and general relativity that Einstein elucidated over the following decade...

...Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize for physics in in 1921, and by the terms of their divorce agreement the money went to Mileva...

...Nevertheless, at the end of this disturbing book the reader is ready to raise a modest monument to Mileva, and to give Albert a swift kick in the pants...

...His most recent book is Natural Prayers (Ruminator Books...

...He apparently took the leap into matrimony out of a sense of duty...

...One of those papers, titled "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," has been called the most famous scientific paper in history...

...I will keep a copy of your editorial with my Boston Globe from the day after the election as a reminder of the preciousness of my vote and everyone else's...

...As mother Pauline and wife Mileva squabbled, Albert wrote: "No wonder that the love of science thrives under these circumstances, for it lifts me impersonally, and without railing and wailing, from the vale of tears into peaceful spheres...

...She was two years older than the handsome German, and recognized at once the keenness of his mind...

...They talked about the fundamental natures of matter, space, and time They lived on "coffee, music, and physics " To this reviewer's eye, a photograph of Mileva as a young mother bears a striking resemblance to photographs of Einstein's mother Pauline, who was always a formidable presence in his life (unfortunately, there are no photographs of her in this book...

...Dennis Overbye is a terrific writer and storyteller...

...The miracle of relativity— the foundation of all contemporary stories of creation—was rooted in the ordinary, and forged in the heat of a tempestuous love affair...

...Overbye shows us that Einstein's genius was "to extract the miraculous from thinking—really thinking—about the ordinary...