#187 Albert Einstein

Einstein had insisted that his ashes be scattered so that his final resting place would not become the subject of morbid veneration. But there was one part of his body that was not cremated. In a drama that would seem fake were it not so horrifying, Einstein's brain ended up being, for more than four decades, a wandering relic. Hours after his death, a routine autopsy was performed by the pathologist at Princeton Hospital, Thomas Harvey.

When he stitched the body back up, Harvey decided, without asking permission, to embalm Einstein's brain and keep it. The next morning, in a fifth grade class at Princeton School, the teacher asked her students what news they had heard. Einstein died, said one girl, eager to be the first to come up with that piece of information. But she quickly found herself topped by an unusually quiet boy who sat in the back of the class. My dad's got his brain, he said.

Einstein's family was horrified. Harvey insisted that there may be scientific value to studying the brain. Einstein would have wanted that, he said. Unsure what legal and practical rights he now had in this matter reluctantly went along. Soon, Harvey was besieged by those who wanted Einstein's brain or a piece of it.

He was summoned to Washington to meet officials of the U.S. Army's pathology unit, but despite their requests, he refused to show them his prized possession. Guarding it had become a mission. Harvey decided to have friends at the University of Pennsylvania turn part of it into microscopic slides, and so he put Einstein's brain, now chopped into pieces, into two glass cookie jars and drove it there in the back of his Ford.

Over the years, in a bizarre process, Harvey would send off slides or chunks of the remaining brain to random researchers who struck his fancy. In the meantime, he quit Princeton Hospital. left his wife remarried a couple times and moved around often leaving no forwarding address the remaining fragments of einstein's brain always with him In 1998, after 43 years as the wandering guardian of Einstein's brain, Thomas Harvey, by then 86, decided it was time to pass on the responsibility.

So he called the person who currently held his old job as pathologist at Princeton Hospital and went by to drop it off. Okay, so that was an excerpt from the epilogue of the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Einstein, His Life and Universe, and it was written by Walter Isaacson. Okay, so before we jump back into the book, I want to tell you how this fits into everything else that we've been talking about.

One thing that I read about Steve Jobs that I thought was really interesting was the fact that he would learn from every experience and then bring everything he learned from every experience back to Apple. And he said something about J. Robert Oppenheimer that I thought was really interesting. And I'm going to read directly from this section.

another book written by Isaacson. It's Steve Jobs biography. And this is Steve Jobs talking. He says at Pixar, it was a whole company of A players. So when I got back to Apple, that's what I decided to try to do. My role model was J. Robert Oppenheimer. I read about the type of people he sought for the atom bomb project. I wasn't nearly as good as he was, but that's what I aspired to do.

So that made me think to go look for a book on J. Robin Oppenheimer. So I started listening to the audiobook. This book is called The General and the Genius, Groves and Oppenheimer, The Unusual Partnership.

that built the atom bomb and while i'm listening to the audiobook einstein of course is mentioned a lot that made me remember that i had a biography of his on kindle and i should reread it and then i can make a podcast on it so that's how we that's how this idea came about and towards the end of einstein

his life, him and Oppenheimer at the same institute at Princeton. So actually, there's several highlights towards the end of the book where they're interacting and their interaction is really fascinating. So I'll get there. I'm going to probably read two books on Oppenheimer.

Give me a few weeks, and I think I'm going to put both those books in one podcast. So that's the plan, at least for now. Let's focus on Einstein, though. There's a lot to learn from him. I want to start with his personality. Definitely a misfit. There's a lot. I feel Isaacson, in this book more so than any other of the biographies I've read that he's written, he repeats himself a lot in terms of what is...

Einstein's personality traits that he applies to everything he does. And so the first thing that he talks about is the fact that he's definitely an independent thinker. He's definitely a misfit. So he says Einstein remained consistent in his willingness to be a serenely amused loner. who was comfortable not conforming. Independent in his thinking, he was driven by an imagination that broke from the confines of conventional wisdom.

His imprudent instincts, which served him so well as a young scientist, made him allergic to anything that smacked of a herd mentality. So I wanted to define that word imprudent because he uses that. One of the great things about this book is we're going to... There's a lot of quotes directly from Einstein. So he gets to speak for himself a lot. And he has a maxim that he repeats where he says, long live imprudence. It's my guardian angel in this world.

And so when you go to the dictionary and you look up imprudent, it says not showing due respect for another person impertinent. And the reason I bring that up now is because Isaacson just said, hey, this trait served him well as a young scientist. He was able to constantly question like the received wisdom. And that's what Einstein's obviously known for because he rethought the fundamentals of physics. But as we'll see, that's also a mistake.

he made early when he was extremely young. The fact that he did not show respect to other people around him. And so even though he was undeniably brilliant, and even his professors in college thought he was brilliant, no one would give him a job. So he actually struggled because of his inability. He had a hard time relating to other people and dealing with them. Now, he learned. He's obviously a genius. His name is...

synonymous with genius, right? He learned to temper that trait and learned that, hey, this is a skill I'm going to need to work on to improve the conditions of my life. But I do find it always fascinating that there is... or there are, I should say, traits that are strengths in one domain and weaknesses in another. So just remember that for later.

He never lost, this is something I think we should emulate, he never lost his childlike curiosity. Adding to his aura was his simple humanity. His inner security was tempered by the humility that comes from being awed by nature. He could be detached and aloof from those close to him, but toward mankind in general, he exuded a true kindness and gentle compassion.

So we're still in the introduction. Isaacson's telling us what is the value in studying the life of Einstein. And then Einstein's going to speak for himself as well. So this is an appreciation for the glories of science is a joyful trait for a good society. It helps us remain in touch with that childlike capacity. for wonder about such ordinary things as falling apples and elevators that characterizes Einstein and other great physicists. That is why studying Einstein can be worth

worthwhile. Near the end of his life, Einstein was asked what schools should emphasize. And I love this. In teaching history, he replied, there should be extensive discussion. of personalities who benefited mankind through independence of character and judgment he could have been speaking about himself

And that same quote that's coming from Isaacson, or excuse me, from Einstein, is exactly what Isaacson, what was his point? That we should be studying the personalities who benefited mankind through independence of character and judgment. Now back to Isaacson. Einstein fit into that category.

And when I got to this section, it made me think of this quote that I have saved on my phone that I look at from time to time. And it's from one of my favorite writers, this guy named Tim Urban. I've mentioned him multiple times on the podcast. He writes the WaitButWhy blog. You can go to WaitButWhy.com and see how his writing.

But he says, I'm fascinated by those rare people in history who managed to dramatically change the world during their short time here. And I've always liked to study those people and read their biographies. Those people know something the rest of us don't, and we can learn something valuable for them. So I think what Tim, Tim Isaacson. and Einstein are all saying the same thing.

This is Einstein on imagination being more important than knowledge. As a young student, he never did well with rote learning. His success came not from the brute strength of his mental processing power, but from his imagination and creativity. As he once declared, imagination is more important. important than knowledge.

His success came from questioning conventional wisdom, challenging authority, and marveling at mysteries that struck others as mundane. This led him to embrace a morality based on respect for free minds, free spirits, and free individuals. We're going to throw the book. Tyranny repulsed him, and he saw tolerance not simply as a sweet virtue, but as a necessary condition for a creative society.

And he's going to say something right now that we've heard many, many times before in these biographies. It is important to foster individuality, he said, for only the individual can produce the new ideas. So that is something that people like Charles Ketering...

Edwin Land, Warren Buffett, David Ogilvie, Larry Ellison. There's just example after example. They all say things like this. They don't believe, and some of them don't even mince words by any means. They say there is no such thing as droop. group creativity it all comes from individuals and so we have Einstein right here echoing that same thought only the individual can produce the new ideas

And that's a great way to think about Einstein or the life of Einstein. He was an individual through and through. He never considered himself part of the group. The reason he was able to come up with such strange ideas is because he had he voluntarily sought solitude. It's not that very it's not much different.

Obviously, it's applied to a different domain. But when we were studying people like Claude Shannon or Henry Singleton, they were similar to Einstein. They did all their best work alone. They did not pay much attention to the outside world. And they realized you don't get outsized results by mimicking the herd.

And then finally, before we get into his early life, Isaacson does a great job of... This is a perfect way to tie all this together. Like, why is all this important? This outlook made Einstein a rebel with a reverence for the harmony of nature. One who would just the right blend of imagination...

and wisdom to transform our understanding of the universe. And he ties it all together right here in the sentence. These traits are just as vital for this new century in which our success will depend on our creativity. Okay, so let's go into his personality as a kid. A lot of these personality traits stayed with him for his entire life. He was generally a loner.

a tendency he claimed to cherish throughout his life, although his was a special sort of detachment that was interwoven with a relish for camaraderie and intellectual companionship. From the very beginning, he was inclined to separate himself from other children his own age and engage in daydreaming and meditative musing. This is his sister's description of him. I think Einstein's around 10 or 12 years old at this time. Persistence and tenacity were obviously already part of his character.

And this is just great advice from him. People like he's writing to a friend, people like you and me never grow old. We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we are born. So curiosity is a main theme in this book. If Einstein were here.

would definitely tell you to be more curious even from a very early age he had the ability to focus on a goal by age 12 he already had a predilection predilection for solving complicated problems and applied arithmetic and he decided to see if he could jump ahead by learning geometry and algebra on his own.

His parents bought him the textbooks in advance so that he could master them over summer vacation. Not only did he learn the proofs in the books, he tackled the new theories by trying to prove them on his own. Play and playmates were forgotten. For days on end, he sat alone immersed in the search for a solution, not giving up before he had found it. And then he finds pleasure in working on his entire life. He loves to work on problems because of all the work you have to put in.

but then the reward you get when you actually find a solution. When Einstein triumphed, as he invariably did, he was overcome with great happiness. Another thing about Einstein, he was comfortable not being a conformist. He had an allergic reaction against all forms of dogma and authority. He would later be able to pull off this contrarianness with a grace that was genuinely endearing once.

important once he was accepted as a genius this gave him a lot of problems before that and i'm going to go into i'm going to spend a lot of time talking about that because i think it's so fascinating uh but did not it did not play so well when he was merely a sassy student in munich He was very uncomfortable in school. He found the style of teaching, rote drills, impatience with questioning, to be repugnant.

The systematic training in the worship of authority was particularly unpleasant. He's not even a teenager yet when he's going through all this. Skepticism and a resistance to received wisdom became a hallmark of his life as he proclaimed, quote,

authority is the worst enemy of truth so he hates the school so much now i fast forwarded he's in what would be like the equivalent of high school so he's going to drop out to study on his own in hopes of just taking the test so he can get admittance into university But we see when he's doing this, he also, a lifelong trait and something that's talked about from his family, friends, is the fact that he had immense powers of focus and concentration.

Einstein had promised his family that he was studying on his own to get into the local technical college. So he bought all of the three volumes of advanced physics texts and copiously noted his ideas in the margins. His work habits showed his ability to concentrate, even in a large, noisy...

group he could withdraw to the sofa take a pen and paper in hand and lose himself so completely in a problem that the conversation of many voices stimulated rather than disturbed him and this idea of being lost in thought there are some hilarious stories the last 22 years of his life when he escapes

Germany and Hitler. He winds up living and working at Princeton. So I got a lot of funny stories about this later on. Eventually, while he's studying his own, he also finds, I don't have it in my notes, unfortunately. I can't remember if this school's in Germany or if it's in

Switzerland. He felt like if there was any country in the world, at least the first part of his life that he identified with, it was definitely Switzerland. So he winds up finding a school, realizing that not all schools are the same. It's not all just rote learning and you can't question. the teachers on the material so there's a guy named pestilossi

And this is the school he created, the one that Einstein's going to. He also thought it was important to nurture the inner dignity and individuality of each child. Students should be allowed to... This is Pestolosi's philosophy that Einstein... agrees with by the way students should be allowed to reach their own conclusions by using a series of steps that begin with hands-on observations and then proceed to intuitions conceptual thinking and visual imagery it was even possible

It was even possible to learn and truly understand the laws of math and physics that way. Wrote drills, memorization, and force-fed facts were avoided. now this is Einstein talking about this time in his life, when compared to six years schooling at a German authoritarian gymnasium.

Einstein later said, it made me clearly realize how much superior an education based on free action and personal responsibility is to one relying on outward authority. Let me read that part again because I just realized. It made me realize how much superior an education based on... free action and personal responsibility is to one is to one relying on outward authority okay so he's comparing contrasting his time in that german authoritarian school to this school right he will say

And I have highlights, so we'll talk about this later. But he'll say the same thing when he's around, I think he's 40 years old. He's living in Berlin at the time. Student revolutionaries kidnapped the deans of the college that he's at. And Einstein goes to try to convince these student revolutionaries to release the deans.

And they're asking, the student revolutionaries are drawing up new laws. This is how the university is going to be guided. And they're asking Einstein, what do you think of this? And he said something that's really interesting, and I'll go into more detail later, but he said teachers should be free to teach how and what they want.

want, and then that students should be free to select into the classes they want. The revolutionaries, and I put that in quotes, of course, want to make all the decisions for everyone else so they don't...

they don't listen to his advice. But it's really interesting now looking back that this is something that he believed over multiple decades, the fact that it's up to the individual. It's almost like, I mean, he does this later on too, to develop, we talked about this idea that everybody should have their own personal curriculum.

And it's not a curriculum that ends when you're in school. And I think Einstein would agree with that. So this is a description of 16-year-old Einstein. He was sure of himself. He strode energetically up and down in a rapid, crazy tempo of a restless spirit, which carries a whole world in itself. Whoever approached him was captivated. by his superior personality. Young Einstein had a sassy, sometimes intimidating wit.

Okay, so I want to fast forward in Einstein's life to listen to college. And this is where we get back with the issue with imprudence, right? Einstein's rebel nature. leads him to be an antagonist with his main physics professor. And this is a mistake and a big problem later on when he tries to get a job.

So this is where we're going to learn what not to do, the parts where we don't want to emulate him. So says Weber, that's that's his main physics professor. So let me I guess let me back up. What was expected to happen at the school he's going to, you get your degree in physics and then you graduate.

And then you become a teacher. Maybe you start at like a high school or a junior professor and you work your way up. Every single other person in Einstein's class gets hired except Einstein because of his attitude and his just he is a rebel and a misfit, which is why we like to study him.

know when to temper these these personality traits and he didn't know when to do that he doesn't get his job till nine years after he graduates and four years after he revolutionized So that gives you an idea of just how, you know, his personality to people, especially people that were above him in some ways, like teachers or people that he was supposed to listen to, I guess, in some degree, just shows. they...

they were turned off by it. And this is what Weber's going to say. Weber's irritation was yet another example of how Einstein's scientific as well as personal life was affected by the traits deeply bred into his soul. His casual willingness to question authority, his sassy attitude in the face of...

regimentation and his lack of reverence for received wisdom. You're a very clever boy, Einstein, Weber told him. An extremely clever boy. But you have one great fault. You never let yourself be told anything.

And we're going to see why that's both a strength and a weakness, because he's going to start beefing with his other physics professor, too. Oh, and I got to back up Weber. The reason he can't get a job is because everybody checks his references and Weber tells them, no, don't hire this guy. So that's a problem. On those rare occasions when Einstein did show up.

and this guy's name is Pernet. In Pernet's class, his independent streak sometimes got him in trouble, such as the day he was given an instruction sheet for a particular experiment. With his usual independence, Einstein naturally flung the paper in the waste paper basket. He proceeded to pursue the experiment. in his own way.

So Pernet is talking this over with his teaching assistant. He's like, what do you make of Einstein? He always does something different from what I've ordered. And I thought his assistant's reply was very fascinating. He does indeed, professor, but his solutions are right and the method he uses are of great interest. And so this is where we get into the part where he's developing his own personal curriculum.

I can't decide if personal curriculum or personal research and development is the better way to describe that idea, but he's doing, that's what he's doing. I played hooky, this is Einstein, I played hooky a lot and studied the masters of theoretical physics with a holy zeal at home. And another thing about Einstein is that he used diving into his work and being extracted his work as a distraction from what he calls the merely personal.

So he says strenuous intellectual work and looking at God's nature are the reconciling, fortifying, yet relentlessly strict angels that shall lead me through all of life's troubles. He's got a beautiful way of speaking, by the way. He's a mastered language. And yet what a peculiar way he's describing himself. right the fact that he's just he just dives into this use of distraction because

He understands math and physics, but he doesn't understand humans. And yet what a peculiar way this is to weather the storms of life. In many a lucid moment, I appear to myself as an ostrich who buries his head in the desert sand so as not to perceive. the danger. This is a state of Einstein's life. The year is 1900. He is 21 years old. He has graduated. He was a low ranked graduate of a teaching college without a teaching job.

without any research accomplishments, and certainly without academic patrons. Among the many surprising things about the life of Albert Einstein was the trouble he had getting an academic job. It would be an astonishing nine years after his graduation and four years... after the miracle year in which he upended physics before he would be offered a job as a junior professor. This sentence is perfect. The delay was not due to a lack of desire on his part.

So what does that mean? He's got a people problem. The problem was that the two physics professors at the Polytechnic were acutely aware of his imprudence, there's that word against, but not of his genius.

Getting a job with Purnett, who had reprimanded him, was not even a consideration. As for Weber, he had developed... Listen to this. This is not what you want to do. You want to build relationships with people in your life, even if you don't like them. He had developed such an allergy to Einstein that when no other...

graduates of the physics and math department were available to become his assistant. He instead hired two students from the engineering division. So everybody else is taken. Einstein's still there. Yeah, he's a genius. I don't want to deal with him. I'll go to the engineering department. That's not good.

And this is summary of the whole section. He managed to become the only person graduating in his section who was not offered a job. So this also relates to building companies. Sam Walton, in his autobiography, Made in America. He's got a great, he's writing on that book. He knows he's got cancer. He knows he's going to die very soon.

And he's just got tons of great lessons in the book. It's a fantastic read if you haven't read it yet. But he says something that I will always remember. And he says, this is a direct quote from Sam. I learned a long time ago that exercising your ego in public is definitely not the way to...

build an effective organization. And without doubt, Sam Walton giant ego as he should have an ego but he kept it hidden he uses ego for confidence and drive but not to strut it like a peacock not to show it other people do not it's it's human nature they don't like seeing ego in other people you gotta

hide it. And so let me read that to you again. I learned a long time ago that exercising your ego in public is definitely not the way to build an effective organization. Very few people have built more effective organizations in the history of humankind than Sam Walton. Maybe we should listen to them.

This is Einstein on his inability to get hired. And he's just really witty and extremely likable. Now, it's interesting. I told you before, the benefit of reading biographies is like you feel you feel you get to know by the time you know, this is a 20 hour read.

You feel after spending so much time, you usually get the essence of the person. You feel like you know them. I don't feel that with Einstein. He's a likable person. He's a witty person. But I do feel like he did hide himself a little bit. Even... You understand how he thinks, but the actual person behind there, I don't have that feeling. But I do like his wit.

And just the funny stories he has. So this is on his inability to get hired. I leave no stone unturned and do not give up my sense of humor. God created the donkey and gave him a thick skin. So Einstein's having a tough time. His father does something. His father writes to a professor that Einstein applied to but never heard back from. And there's a great, great irony at the end of this. And so let me read you the letter from Mindset's father.

Zurich Polytechnic for four years, and he passed his exam with flying colors last summer. Since then, he's been trying unsuccessfully to get a position as a teaching assistant, which would enable him to continue his education in physics. All those in a position to judge praises his talent.

I can assure you that he is extraordinary studious and diligent and clings with great love to his science. He therefore feels profoundly unhappy about his current lack of job, and he becomes more and more convinced that he has gone off the tracks with his career. It is to you... It is you to whom, sorry, I have taken the liberty of turning with the humble request to read his paper and to write to him, if possible, a few words of encouragement.

so that he might recover his joy in living and working. If in addition you could secure him an assistance position, my gratitude would know no bounds. I beg you to forgive me for my imprudence in writing you. That word is used a lot by the Einstein, huh? And my son does not know anything about my unusual step. So the guy, the person he's writing is a guy named Oswald. We're going to get to the ironic part. Oswald still did not answer.

However, he would become, nine years later, the first person to nominate Einstein for the Nobel Prize. That's hilarious. He wouldn't even bother to respond to him, wouldn't hire him. But nine years later, he nominates him for the Nobel Prize. That made me think there's one of the co-founders of WhatsApp, Brian Acton. He would live tweet. This was like back in, I think, 2009.

As he goes on these job interviews at all these tech companies and he's just not getting hired over and over again. So he winds up applying at Facebook. They don't hire him in 2009. Five years later, he winds up selling WhatsApp to Facebook for $19 billion. So another example of history. It's a nice irony there.

Let's go back to Einstein's emotional state at this point. As you can imagine, it's not. Well, he became so discouraged that at least for the moment, he felt it futile to continue his search. Under these circumstances, it no longer made sense to write further to professor.

That wasn't clear. This is a quote from Einstein. Under these circumstances, it no longer makes sense to write further to professors since should things get far enough along, it is certain that they would inquire with Weber and he would again give a poor reference. So this goes back to somebody that really helped improve my thinking about this.

Because I understand the instinct to be a rebel, to be a pirate, to, like, say, you know, forget you. Like, we don't get along. It doesn't matter. One of my favorite podcasters and who I got the idea for the format of this podcast is Jocko Willen. Jocko podcast. He calls it a course. His podcast is a course on military history, which I think is a great way to describe it. But he's got a video on YouTube.

uh that i've sent a few friends some strong-willed stubborn pig-headed friends and sometimes they'll talk about the issues they're having sometimes it's with a boss a co-worker whatever it is but the name of the video is how to win with people you don't like how to win with people you don't like jocko put down to youtube and you can see it and his whole point is like it's irrelevant if you don't like them or not

Like to succeed in the world, you're going to have to work with other humans. And some of those other humans, of course, you're not going to get along with. But it's your responsibility to build a relationship. So because building a relationship with this person is what's going to make you effective. And he talks about when he was younger.

when he was in his early 20s, which is exactly what Einstein is now, that he was hot-headed, that he thought he knew better. Even people that were his bosses at the time, he's like, oh, this guy's stupid. And then one time he realized how ineffective he was being. He says his whole perspective on that. has changed when he's like if i'm so smart how come i can't get this guy to do what i want him to do

And that's when he realized he wasn't he may be smart, but he wasn't acting smart. He had to build a relationship. So let's say, you know, you don't necessarily agree with Weber with what with his view or the way he teaches. That's fine. You don't have to tell him that. You can still build a relationship. Humans don't like when you criticize.

them directly. You have to use an indirect approach. So if you know anybody's struggling with that, or again, I just think it's worth, I think the video's like, I don't know, 10 minutes. I can't tell you how many times I've sent it to people because it's just, it's the best succinct way to describe.

how to put your ego aside and just be effective. Like go out and don't let your inability to get along with other people stop you from whatever service or whatever goal you're after. And in the case of Einstein, like this caused him a lot of, you know.

I don't know, maybe heartache. Yeah, he's dispared. He's depressed. I guess it is heartache. And it was just unnecessary. And this is also not only I think he would agree that it's unnecessary because later on in life, he learns. Obviously, he's smart and he stops doing this.

doesn't ever stop talking he definitely has a lot of disagreeable um opinions to other people and it's written about in the newspaper later on which i'll go over but he does figure out a way to take a tactful approach so he can actually okay if it's if it's in his best interest to accomplish something and somebody standing in his way, he'll learn how to deal with them, I guess is what I'm saying. So he has no luck.

becoming a teacher. This is where one of the legend of Einstein is the fact that he was making all these great contributions to physics and he wasn't a professor, he was a patent clerk. in switzerland so this is how he gets the job just when einstein was beginning to despair his friend grossman wrote that there was likely be an opening for an examiner at the swiss patent office located in berne grossman's father knew the director and he was willing to recommend einstein

And this is where he's ecstatic. Just think what a wonderful job this would be for me. I will be mad with joy if something should come of that. And this is the maxim I mentioned earlier. In a line that could be considered yet another maxim for his life, Einstein recounted, Long live imprudence. It is my guardian angel in the world.

So let's go back to his schedule when he's working at the patent office. So in 1905, it's considered his miracle year. That's when he writes the four most important papers or four, some of the most important papers of his life. And his schedule is rather crazy. So it says it was Albert Einstein.

So it was that Albert Einstein would end up spending the most creative seven years of his life arriving at work at 8 a.m. six days a week and examining patent applications. I'm frightfully busy. Every day I spend eight hours at the office and at least one hour of private life. lessons and then in addition I do some scientific work. He soon learned that he could work on the patent application so quickly that it left time for him to sneak in his own scientific thinking during the day.

I was able to do a full day's work in only two or three hours. The remaining part of my day, I would work on my own ideas. And so there's something that Einstein learns from his boss at the patent office that I think is really useful. And something we should think about as well. His boss had a credo that was useful for a creative and rebellious theorist as it was for a patent examiner.

And we're going to see that his name's Holler, I think. Holler's credo is very similar to a tactic that Jeff Bezos uses. So this is Einstein's boss. You have to remain critically vigilant. Question every premise, challenge conventional wisdom, and never accept the truth of something merely because everyone else views it as obvious. resist being credulous. When you pick up a patent application, think that everything the inventor says is wrong.

So Jeff Bezos does that exact same thing. I did a bonus episode a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago or two months ago, I don't know. It's called Working Backwards. One of the co-authors of that book was Jeff's shadow for several years.

And so in that book, he gives us a simple tip from Jeff Bezos on how to produce unique insights. And so let me read from that book to you real quick. Jeff has an uncounting ability to read a narrative and consistently arrive at insights that no one else did, even though we were all reading the same narrative.

after one meeting i asked him how he was able to do that he responded with a simple and useful tip that i have not forgotten he assumes each sentence he reads is wrong until he can prove otherwise He's challenging the content of the sentence not the motive of the writer. Jeff, by the way, was usually among the last to finish reading.

And so we see here, Einstein's boss is telling the same thing. Hey, when you pick up this application, think that everything the inventor says is wrong. So while he's living in Bern, he's got a bunch of friends there, and they do something that's really fantastic. And they decide, they create this thing called the Olympia Academy. And then again, this is, they're developing their own personal curriculum. They decide to get together to read the great thinkers.

and then discuss their ideas. They dubbed themselves the Olympia Academy. So they'd meet all night, and this just sounds like a great night to me. going through this and living through this with Einstein, no less. Right. After the discussions, which could last all night, Einstein would sometimes play the violin and less interest in that part. And then they'd occasionally climb. This is really interesting. They'd occasionally climb a mountain to watch the sunrise. We would more.

So they spend all day work, right? Then they're meeting up to... took over all the ideas they read. Einstein's drinking coffee. He's playing the violin. They're smoking cigars. And they said, hey, let's go climb this mountain. So we would, and watch the sunrise. We would marvel at the sun as it came slowly towards the horizon and finally appeared in all.

its splendor to bathe in the Alps. Then they would wait for the mountain cafe to open so they could drink dark coffee before hiking down to start work. There's two guys' names. I have no idea how to pronounce them, so I'm not going to try. These two guys would become Einstein's lifelong friends. And he would later reminisce with them about our cheerful academy. And this is now Einstein writing. He is close to...

This is about 50 years in the future from when this is happening because they're in their, let's say, early to mid-20s. And now he's writing and he's in his 60s or 70s. He would reminisce about our Cheerful Academy, which was, this is hilarious, which was less childish than those respectable. And so now we get to the part where his dad dies. And I think the note of myself is this may drive you.

It says, Herman Einstein was not destined to see his son become anything more successful than a patent examiner.

He later called his father's... death the deepest shock he had ever experienced i was actually watching this interview with pat riley and he said something that was interesting and i think that just it talks it speaks to the fundamental nature of these relationships the bond between and it moves in both directions obviously it's more intentional as it moves down the generations than up but still the bond that you have with your

parents. And Pat Riley was talking about that his dad, he was 25 years old when his dad died. I think Einstein's around the same age as well. And he said something. So he said, so any success I've had after that, he didn't see. This is a recent interview. Maybe it lasts like two years with him. Pat's in his 70s if I'm not mistaken. So this is 50 years after his dad dies. And Pat gets choked up in this interview talking about the fact that his dad never got to see...

any of the success that he achieved throughout the rest of his life. So let's look at it from Einstein's perspective. You know, my father dies, and as far as he knows, all I'm ever going to be is a... be a patent examiner. There's nothing wrong with a normal job, don't get me wrong, but all the remarkable achievements and the worldwide fame and the inspiration that Einstein...

delivered to millions of people throughout his life, his dad missed. So I just think that it's just a little devastating when you think about it, I guess, is what I'm saying. So let's go back to this idea that I think is really, really important. This is a description of Einstein going into his miracle year. The fact that he revolutionizes and makes a large contribution to his area of interest, and yet there was nothing, nothing.

Nothing in his life that would predict that that was about to happen. I find this so very fascinating. Up until then, Einstein had published five little noted papers. They had earned him neither a doctorate nor a teaching job. And this is a remarkable sentence. Had he given up theoretical physics at this point, the scientific community would not have noticed. That's a crazy sentence. As I'm about to read the next section to you, this is the most...

A common parallel to what Einstein did in 1905 is what Isaac Newton did in 1666. So it says there was no sign that he was about to unleash a remarkable year the like of which science had not seen since 1666 when Isaac Newton holed up his... at his mother's home to escape the plague, develop calculus, an analysis of light spectrum, and the laws of gravity.

This is Einstein on where his ideas come from. I guess not just, I don't think it just applies to him. He's speaking in general. A new idea comes suddenly. and in a rather intuitive way, but the intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience.

I heard Elon Musk on a podcast say something similar one time where it's like, where do you get most of your ideas? And he says it sounds cliche, but it's usually in the shower. And he's like, it's not actually happening in the shower. It's just I'm receiving. And, you know, he thinks of his brain like a computer. So he's like, I'm just receiving.

the download of last night's calculations or something like that. I thought it was funny. This is why people associate Einstein with the atomic bombs, even though he did not really play much of a role, at least specifically. He is obviously mentioned and he'll forever be associated as that though. So it says his famous, probably the most famous formula of all time, E equals MC squared. It says energy equals mass times the square.

Of the speed of light the speed of light of course is huge squared is almost inconceivably bigger That is why a tiny amount of matter if converted completely into energy has an enormous punch So after his miracle year A few years after, he's going to wind up eventually getting and spending the rest of his life in academia. Although a lot of the jobs he gets, essentially, they're just paying him to think. In many cases, he doesn't have teaching responsibilities or any administrative.

Not that he'd want them anyways. But this is really the reason I'm reading the section to you is because since the fact that we do need other humans... to collaborate with other humans to be successful in the world, that really sales is the most important job. Not only selling yourself, but selling your ideas. And Einstein was penalized for his inability to do so. There's conversations happening between one of Einstein's...

Einstein's colleagues and a father. The names are not important. I'm going to read the substance of the letter. Einstein had no understanding how to relate to people. This is before he gets... job offers. And the main point here is that people less talented than Einstein but with better people skills got the opportunities first.

I think that clearly demonstrates to us this is not a part of life that we can skip over, that we have to work on our people skills. We saw this with Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett winds up taking all these in the two biographies I've covered of him. He winds up taking Dale Carnegie's course on public speech.

speaking, even though he's going to be an investor, basically running his own show his whole career. And then he takes the course and then he goes. I think he's in his mid-20s at the time. And then he volunteers and gets a job.

teaching night teaching investing at a nighttime like a like a college local college by his house if i'm not mistaken and his whole point is like i need to be able to teach people my ideas and to be able to communicate with other people like this is clearly a skill that i'm going to need So he's about to transfer. He's about to end his time at the patent office and start working for universities. But I got to tell you this hilarious story. First of all,

And this book has a bunch of these hilarious stories in them, which I really found. They're probably my favorite parts in the entire book. It says, one of his last days working at the patent office, he received a large envelope with elegant sheet covered in Latin calligraphy. Because it seemed odd and impersonal, he threw it in the waste page.

It was an invitation to receive an honorary doctorate. So eventually he's like, no, I don't want to do that. His friend persuades him to attend like this very formal event. And this is hilarious. A friend of Einstein's persuaded him to attend Einstein. Einstein arrived with a straw hat and an informal suit, so he stood out rather strangely both in the parade and at the opulent formal dinner that followed.

Amused by the whole situation, he turned to the person seated next to him and speculated about what the... Protestant Reformation leader who had founded the university would say, and his name's Calvin, do you know what Calvin would have done had he been here? The gentleman, befuddled, said no. Einstein replied, he would have erected an enormous stake and had us all burnt for its sinful extravagance. As Einstein later recalled, the man never addressed another word to me.

So at this point in his career, he still has teaching duties. So he has to... give lectures. And as you can imagine, everything this guy does is different. So even the way he lectured was different. Instead of prepared notes, Einstein used a card with scribbles on it. So the students got to watch him develop his thoughts as he spoke. We obtained something. This is now a student talking about.

his experience being taught by Einstein, we obtained some insight into his working technique. We certainly appreciated this more than any stylistically perfect lecture. During one lecture, Einstein found himself momentarily stumped about the steps needed to complete a calculation.

There must be some silly mathematical transformation that I can't find for a moment, he said. Can any one of you gentlemen see it? Not surprisingly, none of them could. So Einstein continued. Well, leave a quarter of the page. We won't lose any time. Ten minutes later.

Einstein interrupted himself in the middle of another point and exclaimed, I've got it. As the student later marveled, during the complicated development of his theme, he had still found time to reflect upon the nature of that particular mathematical transformation. At the end of many of his evening lectures, Einstein would ask the students who's coming to the cafe, where they would sit and talk until closing time.

And before I go back to more on the way he teaches, just random advice from Einstein that thought it was fantastic. To dwell on the things that depress or anger us does not help in overcoming them. One must knock them down alone. So this is Einstein's friend.

responding to some university administrators that Einstein is not actually a good teacher, which is really interesting because a few years earlier, he's being recruited from one university to another, and his students at the university, they're trying to be... that he's trying to be recruited from, they actually started a signed petition to pay Einstein more to prevent him from leaving because he was such a great teacher. So again, the people that are actually being taught by him love it.

The people that are not in his class think he's not good at it. There's probably a lesson there. As for Einstein's teaching talents, his friend provided a wonderfully nuanced and revealing description. He is not a good teacher for mentally lazy gentlemen who merely want to fill a notebook and then learn it by heart for an exam.

He is not a smooth talker, but anyone wishing to learn honestly how to develop his ideas in physics in an honest way from deep within and how to examine all premises carefully and see the pitfalls and the problems in his reflections will find Einstein a first-class teacher. because all of this is expressed in his lectures, which force the audience to think along.

He continues, Einstein might not be right in all his theories, and this is really fascinating. Like, why would he be wrong sometimes? Since he seeks in all directions, one must expect the majority of the paths on which he embarks to be blind alleys. That's another...

description for entrepreneurship. That actually reminded me when I read that part of a quote that Yvon Chouinard, the founder, the renegade founder of Patagonia has. And he says, the entrepreneurial, he's talking about how he developed products.

basically built his own path because he was really reluctant. The subtitle of his biography is The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. So he talks about the entrepreneurial way is to immediately take a step forward. And if that feels good, take another.

If not, step back. Learn by doing is a faster process. And what Yvonne is saying there and what Einstein's friend is saying is like when you're going out and you're experimenting, you're going to have, because you're going and moving all directions, some of those directions are going to be blind alleys.

I'm going to talk a little bit about Einstein and personal relationships. One, I just got to tell you this funny, what I found part of this funny. So he's married at the time. He's got two sons. Einstein's not the marriage type. He was never faithful. He was, especially when he got super famous, he had women. and affairs throughout his whole life. So he's actually going to leave his first wife for his cousin, Elsa.

And Elsa is going to be his second wife. And then she'll kind of turn a blind eye to the fact. I mean, he even told him. He told her that he didn't feel that humans were capable of being monogamous. But in the meantime, while they're having this affair, while he's still married to.

his first wife, they're writing letters. And in the letter, I thought this part was funny. Elsa sent him a long letter prescribing more exercise, rest, and a healthier diet. He responded by saying that he planned to smoke like a chimney, work like a horse, eat without thinking, and then go for walks only in

really pleasant company. And so Einstein would constantly ruminate on his difficulties with personal relationships. And I think these two sentences is a good way to think about his philosophy. Personal relationships involve nature's most mysterious forces. Outside judgments are easy to make and hard to verify. And it is while he's trying to... At first, I think he was trying to reconcile. Maybe, okay, I'll live with my wife just so I can be with my kids.

So he comes up with this contract that he delivers to her as the only way that they can cohabitate. And we see kind of his like coldness that he has. I mean, this is I'm going to read the whole thing to you because it is wild. Einstein delivered a brutal ceasefire ultimatum. It was in the form of a proposed contract, one in which Einstein's cold scientific approach combined with his personal hostility and emotional alienation produced an astonishing document.

And now he's giving his wife like a terms of agreement, right? And here's our ceasefire agreement. Think of it like that. It read in full, you will make sure that my, one, that my clothes and laundry are kept in good order. Number two, that I receive my three meals regularly in my room. Three, that my bedroom and study are kept neat and especially that my desk is left for my use only. You will renounce all personal relationships.

Relations with me insofar as they are not completely necessary for social reasons You will forgo my sitting at home with you my going out or traveling with you You will obey the following points in your relationship with me You will not expect any intimacy from me, nor will you reproach me in any way. I can't believe he wrote something like this. You will stop talking to me if I request it. You will leave my bedroom or study immediately without protest if I request it.

you will not undertake to belittle me in front of our children, either through words or behavior. He was prepared to live together again because I don't want to lose the children and I don't want them losing me. It was out of the question. that he would have a friendly relationship with her, but he would aim for a business-like one. And he wraps it up by saying the personal aspects must be reduced to a tiny remnant.

So eventually, as you can imagine, that's not going to last very long. So they do wind up getting divorced. And it was really because he's going to live in, I think he's in Berlin at this time, and she's going to go back to Switzerland.

and that causes him a lot of emotional anguish because he's not going to see his kids. The prospect of parting with his children was devastating, Einstein. He became deeply emotional as he imagined life apart from his sons. I would be a real monster if I felt any other way, he said.

I have carried these children around innumerable times. I have played with them. I have joked with them. They used to shout with joy when I came home. Now they will be gone forever and their image of their father is being spoiled. Einstein bawled like a little boy, all afternoon and evening. It was the most wrenching personal moment for a man who took perverse pride in avoiding personal moments.

And a good way, there's one other sentence I want to read to you, but it really is a good way to think about Einstein, is the fact that he was prone to resist confinement. To him, marriage was confining, which was a state he instinctively resisted.

So at this point, World War I is happening. He's in Germany. His kids are in Switzerland. His work, the fact that he's really busy and the war, that there's issues going back and forth across borders, they're preventing him from going to Switzerland to see his kids.

And so there's a letter from his oldest son, Hans Albert. And it's just a reminder, your kids don't care how successful you are. They just want your time. Hans Albert, who was turning 11, wrote him two letters designed to pull at his heart.

I just think if you're coming for Easter, you're going to be here and we'll have a papa again. So throughout his life, he gets in a lot of these like... debates with peers and colleagues and everything else and I guess not even debates is not the way we think about it like fights and he writes to a peer about the silliness of continuing

this robbery, like let's just end this dispute. And this is where we start to see that Einstein's learning the importance of building relationships. And these are quotes from this letter that he's writing to this peer. There has been a certain ill feeling between us, the cause of which I do not want to analyze. I have struggled against the feeling of bitterness attached to it with complete success. I think of you again with unmixed geniality and ask you to try to do the same with me.

It is a shame when two real fellows who have extricated themselves somewhat from the shabby world do not afford each other mutual pleasure. And that leads us to a great sentence that explains the paradox of Einstein. The stubborn patience that Einstein displayed when dealing with scientific problems was equaled by his impatience.

when dealing with personal entanglements. And we see his love of independence, because even when he's about to get divorced from his first wife, he's fine just dating his cousin. Right. And her and her family are pushing them to get married. And he says he even added a somewhat surprised surprising promise. He would not be living with Elsa even if they got married. Instead, he would keep his own apartment.

For I shall never give up the state of living alone, which has manifested itself as an indescribable blessing, he said.

So something that makes the life of Albert Einstein even more remarkable and full of crazy stories is the fact that he lived through both World War I and World War II. And this is the story I was mentioning earlier, where he's heading over... to the university to see what he could do to get the deans of the college released because they were kidnapped by student revolutionaries.

And so it's in this story we do see insights into what was important to him. Basic to his thinking was that recognition of the dignity of the individual and the protection of political and intellectual freedom.

When the student revolutionaries in Berlin jailed their deans, Einstein got to put this philosophy into practice. So he goes to meet with them, the chairman of these revolutionaries. The chairman greeted them and asked them to wait while the group finished hammering out their new statutes for governing the universe.

Then he turned to Einstein. Before we come to your request to speak, Professor Einstein, may I ask you what you think of the new regulations? Einstein paused for a moment. Some people are innately conditioned to hedge their words. to try to please their listeners, and enjoy the comfort that comes from conforming. Not Einstein. Instead, he responded critically.

I have always thought that the German university's most valuable institution is academic freedom, whereby the lecturers are in no way told what to teach, and the students are able to choose what lectures to attend without much supervision and control, he said. Your new statute seemed to abolish all of this. I would be very sorry if the old freedoms were coming to an end. That did not help his mission.

The students decided that they did not have authority to release the deans. So instead, Einstein went off to the chancellor's palace to seek out someone who did. They were able to find the new German president, who was perfectly willing to scribble a note ordering the release. It worked.

Years later, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazis were in power, Einstein would ruefully look back on that day in Berlin. So he's writing to his friend. Do you still remember that occasion some 25 years ago when we went together to the Reichstag building? Convinced that we could turn the people there into honest Democrats. How naive we were for men of 40. So at this point in his life, he can dedicate every single minute.

to just thinking and ruminating, as he says. He doesn't have teaching responsibilities. He doesn't have administrative responsibilities. And I think by examining the relationship, the second marriage he chooses to get into, it really tells us what was important. to him and the fact is that he just wanted to outsource everything else that wasn't ruminating or working on what he wanted to work at at that time.

And that desire is manifested in this second marriage. He was pleased to be looked after as she was to look after him. She told him when to eat and where to go. She packed his suitcase and doled out his pocket money. She was protective of the man that she called the professor. Even though life at his side could be, her quote, innervating and difficult, she once said, that allowed him to spend hours in a rather dreamy state, focusing more on the cosmos than on the world around him.

When Einstein was in one of his periods of intense work, Elsa recognized the need for keeping all disturbing elements away from him. She came to know... from a faraway look in his eyes when he was seized with a problem, as she called it, and thus could not be disturbed. When his intense concentration was over, he would finally come down to the table for a meal and sometimes he would ask to go for a walk with Elsa and her daughters.

So I'm going to get more to this idea of this detached state that Einstein seems to use throughout his entire life. Before I get there, there's just one paragraph that's fantastic. And it says, when the conventional wisdom of physics seemed to conflict with an elegant theory of his, Einstein was inclined to question that wisdom rather than his theory.

And often he would have his stubbornness rewarded. James Dyson, in his fantastic autobiography, he was writing, he's like, listen, you may think I'm being... cocky here or arrogant but he's like just remember i'm only celebrating the virtues of a mule And so he would preach, he'd say one of his best attributes in building the Dyson Company was the fact that he was stubborn, that he celebrated the virtues of a mule. Okay, so let's go back to this part about Einstein's detachment because...

This really does describe Einstein as the person, not the famous well-known name, but as the actual person. Einstein's detachment allowed him to affect an air of amusement rather than anxiety. The whole affair is a matter of indifference to me. as is all the commotion and the opinion of each and every human being. So he's saying I'm indifferent to the opinions of others. I will live through all of this and all that is in store for me like an unconcerned spectator. Einstein was a loner.

He loved being in a group dynamic, playing music, discussing ideas, drinking strong coffee, and smoking pungent cigars. Yet, there was a faintly visible wall that separated him from even family and close friends. He frequented many parlors of the...

mind but he shied away from the inner chambers of the heart there's that paradox again right he did not like to be constricted and he could be cold to members of his family we've seen both examples of that so far yet he loved the camaraderie of intellectual companions

and he had friendships that lasted throughout his life. He was sweet towards people of all ages and classes who floated into his life, got a well along with staffers and colleagues, and tended to be genial towards humanity in general. As long as someone put no strong demands or emotional burdens on him, Einstein could readily forge friendships and even affections. This mix of coldness and warmth produced in Einstein a wry detachment as he floated through the human aspects of his world.

And we're going to hear directly from him how he thinks about this. My passionate sense of social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and communities, he reflected. I am truly a lone traveler and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family with my whole heart. In the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude.

His heart never bleeds and he moves through life with mild enjoyment and emotional indifference. His extreme kindness and decency are thoroughly impersonal and seem to come from another planet. And then it goes into how this kind of...

personality trait affects his work. Einstein's personal detachment and scientific creativity seem to be subtly linked. This detachment sprang from Einstein's trait of apartness, which led him to reject scientific conventional wisdom as well as emotional intimacies. It is easier to be a nonconformist and rebel when you can detach yourself easily from others.

That detachment enabled him to walk through life immersed in thought. It allowed him or compelled him to pursue his theories in both a single-minded and single-handed manner. Einstein understood the conflicting forces in his own soul and he seemed to think it was true for all people. And I'll end this section with a great quote from him. Man is at one and the same time a solitary being and a social being, he said.

And so with that understanding, it's not this next quote on Einstein on not conforming will not come as a surprise. The undignified mania. of trying to adapt and conform and assimilate, which happens among many of my social standing, has always been very repulsive to me.

Okay, so now we get to the point in Einstein's life where his life is going to intersect with Hitler's. And we see the same traits that he's had his whole life as nonconformism, the fact that he'll speak his mind constantly. He continues doing that even in the face of personal danger. Hitler winds up putting a bounty on his head. They wound up ransacking both his apartment in Berlin and his vacation cottage. And if he would have ever went back to Germany, they definitely would have killed him.

And what sparks this off and where Einstein really understands, because two things, his whole life was, he was what he called a militant pacifist. He says that war is usually caused by a biological imperative. So he says that as long as there's man, there's war. But he also said, which was interesting, that you should...

The only thing that the only like ethical thing to do is be a pacifist, which is to me kind of a disassociation where it's like, OK, well, we know that this has been existent in our speeches all time. It'll exist in the future. Yet we're. The solution is just not to voluntarily partake in it, which I didn't understand his thinking there. But this is going to change because the threat from Hitler is so extreme. The second part of that was, even at the very beginning, he never thought that...

it was possible for Jews in Germany at the time to just assimilate. He winds up being friends with Fritz Haber, other famous Jewish... intellectuals and scientists and everything and some of them went that route they would even convert to convert religions they would try to dress and act like other Germans and they didn't realize that that solution was temporary, and that once certain people got in power...

they'll still try to kill you as well. So they wind up killing his friend for being Jewish. And it says the milestone that marked the passage of German antisemitism from being a nasty undercurrent to a public danger was the assassination of... I think he pronounced his name Walther Rathenau. Rathenau thought mistakenly that Jews like himself could reduce anti-Semitism by thoroughly assimilating as good Germans. So I wasn't clear. I don't think I was clear with what I was trying to say.

Einstein doesn't believe what, I'm going to call him Walter, because I have no idea how to pronounce his name, what Walter just said there, that Jews like himself could reduce anti-Semitism by thoroughly assimilating as good Germans. I don't think Einstein ever believed that.

The best course, Walter thought, was for Jews to take public roles and become part of Germany's power structure. It was an attitude that was all too typical for assimilated German Jews. I think that's a quote from Einstein there. On the morning of June 24th, 1922, some young nationalists pulled alongside the open car in which Walter was riding to work. They sprayed him with machine gun fire, lobbed in a hand grenade, and then sped away.

Einstein was devastated by the brutal assassination, but not everyone felt sympathy. Adolf Hitler called the killers German heroes. For Einstein, the assassination proved a bitter lesson. Assimilation did not bring safety. Police warned Einstein that he may be next. His name appeared on a target list prepared by Nazi sympathizers. And yet what's surprising is even as more and more of these events start to take place, he doesn't...

They asked the question, like, why didn't he leave Berlin? And this is the best answer they can come up with. His inertia is hard to explain, but it is indicative of a change that became evident in both his personal life and his scientific work during the 1920s. He had once been a restless rebel who'd hop from job to job, insight to insight, resisting anything that smacked a restraint.

He had been repelled by conventional respectability. So he winds up being in Berlin for like 17 years. So over those 17 years, he's changing. But now he personified it. He was no longer restless. He was comfortable. And so in 1930, 1931, he was asked, what do you think of Adolf Hitler? Einstein replied, he is living on the empty stomach of Germany. As soon as economic conditions improve, he will no longer be important. If only, right?

Another quote from him that Hitler is going to change. I am not only a pacifist, I'm a militant pacifist. And then once Hitler comes to power, he changes this and he changes it for the rest of his life. He realizes, okay, there's just some threats that pass.

Massivism is just not a solution to it. That's what I was mentioning earlier. There seemed to be a disconnect. He understood the biological imperative for humans to engage in war, and yet having a small percentage voluntarily opt out doesn't seem like any kind of solution for that. I was very confused. But he winds up obviously changing that idea as well.

So in the early 1930s, he's going back and forth. He's traveled to he's getting recruited from everywhere. Like people want to go to Oxford and France and Italy and United States. So he goes to the United States and he's going to accept the post at Princeton.

Before I get there, though, I want to, there's just two quick sentences for you. This is advice to his stepdaughters. He offered her daughter some advice on how to lead a moral life, and this is fantastic. Use for yourself little, but give to others much. So he accepts this position at Princeton. This is where in December, 1932, but he's like, okay, I'm going to work in Princeton, but then half the year, a few months a year, I'm still going to go back to Europe.

It's almost like he had a premonition based on what he was saying to other people at the time that he may never see Europe again. When Einstein left Germany in December 1932, he still thought that he might be able to return, but he wasn't sure. When they left, Einstein said to Elsa, as if it was a premonition, take a very good look at it. You'll never see it again. On January 30th, 1933, so a month after he leaves Germany to go, he's going to California, to Pasadena.

to give lectures at a university. While Einstein was safely in Pasadena, Adolf Hitler took power as the new chancellor of Germany. So, December, he leaves Germany. One month later, Adolf's in power. One month later after that, at the end of February, brown shirts started ransacking the homes of Jews. Things had become very clear. Because of Hitler, I don't dare step on German soil, Einstein wrote. On March 10th,

Einstein says this. So this is only three months after he left, right? As long as I have any choice in the matter, I shall live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance, and equality of all citizens before law prevail. These conditions do not exist in Germany at the present time. So the very day that he's saying...

that he's in the united states saying that quote back in berlin his apartment there was raided twice that afternoon by the nazis during the next two days the berlin apartment was ransacked three more times look how fast things changed now granted there was a slow boil his friend had been killed almost 10 years before

But things changed very rapidly. It went from, okay, maybe I'll see Germany again to I'm never leaving. Einstein would never see it again, meaning his apartment. Einstein had begun to mute. His pacifist rhetoric, this is when he starts changing, right? Because he realized how big a threat Hitler is. He received word that the Nazis had raided his cottage under the pretense of looking for a cache of communist weaponry.

Later, they came back and confiscated his beloved boat on the pretense it might be used for smuggling. And an Einstein made a little joke here, my summer house was often honored by the presence of many guests. He said, they were always welcome. None had any reason to break in. And then we see another example that Hitler was not that smart. He was a doofus.

Dan Carlin, my favorite podcaster, he does Hardcore History, but he has another feed called Hardcore History Addendum. And Dan has probably read, I don't know, hundreds of books on World War II? And he has one of his most interesting...

episodes and i recommend listening to it he compares in contrast he's like what he compares the quality of the german army in world war one versus german army in world war two and i think in the podcast if i remember correctly he says if you could take the top 20 um If you would limit and say you could only put 20 of the best German generals in a room from World War I, or from both wars actually, that Hitler wouldn't even get in the room.

that he got power through his charisma and his crazy rhetoric but as far as like his military strategy mind was not people give him a lot more credit in dan's opinion than he was and i just call him a doofus because what he's about to do here and it's another reminder of what charlie munger said you need to avoid intense ideology because it turns your brain to cabbage. And so his hatred of juice, he passes this law that

German government passed a law declaring that Jews could not hold an official position, including at the academy or at universities. Among those forced to flee were 14 Nobel laureates and 26 professors of theoretical physics in the country. A massive... massive brain drain that you did to yourself, you doofus. Fittingly, such refugees from fascism who left Germany, there's a list, Einstein, Teller, Bohr, Fermi, and others.

helped to assure that the Allies, rather than the Nazis, first developed the atom bomb. And so that's what Einstein also said later is the reason that he winds up sending this famous letter to FDR like, hey, we're hearing rumors. Other physicists are telling us that Germany is trying to figure out how to harness and make atomic weaponry. We have to do it before they do.

says later on, if he knew that Germany was unable to do so, he wouldn't have ever lifted a finger because he was so distraught over what happens with the atomic bomb. But the fact was that the reason they couldn't develop it and that America could develop it is in large part and to some degree due to this stupid law that hitler made take taking some of the smartest um was brilliant

physicists and making them run away and flee because his hatred of Jews. Avoid intense ideology. It turns your brain to cabbage. Hitler is a doofus. Here's Hitler's a doofus part two. Max Planck, which is a good friend. He was a few years older. than...

And Einstein, so he goes and tries to talk. He's not Jewish. He goes and tries to talk to Hitler. He's like, we can't do this. Plank tried appealing to Hitler personally. Our national policies will not be revoked or modified even for scientists, Hitler thundered back. If the dismissal of... Jewish scientists means the annihilation of contemporary German science than one should do without science for a few years. What an absolute moron.

Oh, and then I, so he's, he's, so he, he accepts the, let me go back to Einstein, by the way. So he accepts the position at Princeton. He goes back to Europe. He's going to, he goes to Belgium, relinquishes his, his. German citizenship and visits his youngest son winds up suffering from mental illness. So he ends up visiting him who's living with his first wife.

Anyways, I'm telling you this because you never know what the future holds, so I want to give you two examples. This is You Never Know Part 1. When Einstein left Zurich, he was still assuming that he would be spending half of each ensuing year in Europe.

What he did not know was that this would be the last time he would see his first wife and their younger son. So while he's leaving Zurich, he's going to wind up going to England and meeting with Churchill. And there's a great sentence here I'm going to read to you. and just remember that remember that so that's that's you never know part one and we'll get to you never know part two in a minute

Let me tell you more about this Churchill thing because I find him fascinating. He took Einstein to see Winston Churchill, then suffering through his wilderness years as an opposition member of parliament. At lunch in the Gardens of Children's Home, they discussed Germany's rearmament. He is an eminently wise man, Einstein said. It became clear to me that these people have made preparations and are determined to act resolutely and soon.

And I love what Isaacson writes here. It sounded like an assessment from someone who had just eaten lunch with Churchill. I love that. So before he leaves Europe for the final time, he gives a speech and really two things that he preaches his whole life is the need for freedom and solitude.

And he's talking about all the stuff that's happening in Europe right now. If we want to resist the powers that threaten to suppress intellectual and individual freedom, we must be clear what is at stake, he said. Without such freedom, there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Newton, no Faraday, no...

That's a fantastic sentence. He also spoke of the need for solitude. I love this part. And sign me up if I could do this. I would love to spend my days in a lighthouse overlooking the ocean. quiet life stimulates the creative mind. So again, let me start this over. He also spoke of the need for solitude.

The monotony of a quiet life stimulates to creative mind. Give your time, give your brain time to think, right? He said, and he repeated a suggestion he had made when younger that scientists might be employed as lighthouse. keepers so they could devote themselves undisturbed to thinking. And now you never know part two, he did not think he would be away for Europe for long. He planned to spend another term at Oxford the next spring.

But although he would live for another 22 years, Einstein would never see Europe again. Okay, so now Einstein's in America. This is where we get some fantastic anecdotes from his life. When shown his office at Princeton, he was asked what equipment he might need. A desk, a table, a chair, paper, and pencils, he replied. Oh, yes, and a large wastebasket so I can throw away all my mistakes.

He soon acquired an image of being a kindly and gentle professor, distracted at times, but sweet, who wandered around, lost in thought.

helped children with their homework, and rarely combed his hair or wore socks. His slightly disheveled appearance was partly an assertion of his simplicity and partly a mild act of rebellion. And this is hilarious. I have reached an age when if someone tells me to wear wear socks i don't have to he told a neighbor and so it's here where he lived the rest of his life the rest the remaining 21 years of his life another funny einstein story

Peter Buckley happily spent time driving Einstein around, and he later wrote down some of his recollections in extensive notebooks. They provided a delightful picture of the mildly eccentric but deeply unaffected Einstein in his later years. Peter tells of driving his convertible with Einstein when it suddenly started to rain. Einstein pulled off his hat and put it under his coat. Einstein explained.

You see, my hair has withstood water many times before, but I don't know how many times my hat can. Here's a funny, absent-minded professor story. Occasionally he would take rambling walks on his own, which could be dicey.

One day, someone called the Institute and asked to speak to a particular dean. When the secretary said that the dean wasn't available, the caller hesitantly asked for Einstein's home address. That was not possible to give out, he was informed. The caller's voice then dropped to a whisper. Please don't tell anybody, he said, but I am Dr. Einstein. I'm on my way home, and I've forgotten where my house is.

Another funny absent-minded story. At one dinner where Einstein was being honored, he got so distracted that he pulled out his notepad and began scribbling equations. When he was introduced, the crowd burst into a standing ovation, but he was still lost in thought.

His assistant caught his attention and told him to get up. He did, but noticing the crowd standing and applauding, he assumed it was for someone else and he heartily joined in. His assistant had to come over and inform him that the ovation was for him. So one of his friends and...

mentees, I guess, wrote a biography on him while he was still alive. And I thought this sentence was interesting. It's a reminder that doggedness is where all the magic happens. His tenacity in sticking to a problem for years. In returning to the problem again and again, this is the characteristic feature of Einstein's genius, he wrote.

So he's visited by some fellow physicists at his home. They convince him that, hey, there's these rumors. We need to spur the U.S. government into action. This is before America at this time was quote unquote still neutral.

And this is the letter that he writes FDR, which Einstein later says was his biggest regret. But he also hedges that regret saying that, you know, if Germany would have gotten the bomb, like we would have been in big trouble. So he says the world's most famous scientist was about to tell the president of the United States that he should begin contemplating. a weapon of almost unimaginable impact that could unleash the power of the atom.

For the time being, America stayed neutral, or at least it did not declare war. The country did, however, begin to rearm and to develop whatever new weapons might be necessary for its future involvement. I actually did a bonus episode. It's on a book called Freedom's Forge. That entire book is...

about this rearmament of America and the industrial. It was actually recommended by the founder of Straight, Patrick Carlson. Patrick, he's got an amazing mind. I've mentioned to you several times. I'd go to patrickcarlson.com. He's got a very simple website, but it's just very interesting. He's got book recommendations on there. patrickcollison.com force us fast.

Which is why I think I would surmise that Patrick was interested in reading Freedom's Forge because he's obsessed with how it can get large organizations to move unbelievably fast. So he keeps historical examples on his website of groups of individuals throughout history moving rapidly towards a goal.

But anyways, that book, I don't know what it's, it's not numbered. So it's a bonus episode. You have to look for it in the archive. But that entire book is about how, like how quickly America's industry was. was reorganized to produce weapons of war. There's a bunch of formidable individuals and people to learn from, including Henry Kaiser, Bill Knudsen, all kinds of people, Vannevar Bush, that are in that book. It was really, really interesting.

So this is a little bit about the Manhattan Project, which I'm obviously listening to on that audiobook I told you about earlier. More than two years after Einstein and his colleagues had urged attention to the possibility of building atomic weapons, the United States launched the super-secret Manhattan Project. And this is funny why he knew.

Einstein knew what was up. Because so many fellow physicists had disappeared to obscure towns, Einstein was able to surmise that the bomb-making work he had recommended was now proceeding with greater urgency. So it's important to note, though, Einstein was never officially asked to be a part of the Manhattan Project, but he did indirectly assist when asked. I got a book on my nightstand. I'm eventually going to read and turn it to a...

Because this guy, if you read any kind of history of the United States or American business anywhere around World War II, he might be mentioned more than anybody else. When he died, he said no American had greater influence on the growth of science and technology.

Not only that, he was the founder of Raytheon, an engineer, a scientist. He wrote books. He worked, obviously, for the government and ran... the office of scientific research and development um he was the first person to actually see claude shannon for who claude shannon was before claude shannon was who claude shannon was if that makes sense he hires him to run that what was that differentiational

I can't remember the name of the early analog or part analog computer that he hired Claude Shannon around. Anyways, he's a fascinating, fascinating person. So he appears in this book as well. Vannevar Bush, the director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, which oversell the Manhattan Project, contacted Einstein.

and asked for his help on a problem involving the separation of isotopes that started chemical traits. Einstein was happy to comply. Einstein... Oh, and so this is what Van Eever was saying. Bush wanted to get Einstein... more involved in the project, but the U.S. government, including the FBI, led by J. Edgar Hoover at the time, they had multiple decade investigation into Einstein. Hoover...

that crazy nut job, was convinced that Einstein was a spy and a communist. So said Bush wrote, I wish very much that I could place the whole thing before Einstein and take him fully into confidence. But this is utterly impossible in view of the attitude of...

So this is where we get into Einstein's relationship with J. Robert Oppenheimer. And one of the weirdest things that, in my opinion, that Einstein... for his whole life he preached this idea of like a supernatural supernatural I think is the word he used maybe like one world government

to end war and essentially like other if for somebody completely obsessed with freedom and independence he's like well countries have to give up some of their sovereignty to like this one organization that can stop humans uh like

desire for violence. And Oppenheimer's like, this is a ridiculous idea, Einstein. So he says he did challenge Einstein's argument for a full-fledged world government. The history of this nation up through the Civil War shows how difficult the establishment of a federal authority can be.

when there are profound differences in the values of the societies it attempts to integrate. So that's Oppenheimer. His whole point is, like, you can't even do this in one country. Now you're going to combine hundreds of countries with all kinds of different profound differences? Like, it's not going to happen.

He and Oppenheimer viewed each other with a mixture of amusement and respect, which allowed them to develop a cordial, though not close, relationship. Years later, Oppenheimer provided another telling description of Einstein. He was almost holy without sophistication and holy without worldliness. There was always in him a powerful purity, at once childlike and profoundly stubborn. That is a great observation.

from Oppenheimer on Einstein. That's fantastic. I have to bring to you one of Einstein's most famous quotes. Einstein was asked what the next world war would look like. This is after World War II. He says, I don't know how the Third World War will be fought, he answered. but I can tell you what they will use in the fourth. Rocks.

So after World War II, in America, there's this spread of McCarthyism. This is where Einstein will not shut up, and not that he should have, by any means. So he constantly would let people even use his name, because he just did not believe. they should sacrifice anything. He loved the First Amendment, which he talks about. And he thought that the McCarthyism that was taking over the United States at the time was...

You're willing to give up civil liberties to try to chase out the few communists that actually don't even have any power anyways. So then people are like, oh, he must be a communist. Go back to where you came from kind of thing. That instinct in human nature that we see repeats over and over again. But anyways, he's being blasted.

every newspaper for encouraging adherence to free speech and independent thought. But you can't do that during McCarthyism, right? And so Bertrand Russell comes to his defense and he winds up writing because he didn't like what the New York Times was saying about Einstein. So he writes them a letter.

And he's pointing out the difference. Like there's a difference between ethical and legal. And just because something's a law doesn't mean it's ethical. You should always go to what's ethical, right? Among the more amusing letters came from his friend, Bertrand Russell.

You seem to think that one should always obey the law, however bad, the philosopher wrote to the New York Times. I am compelled to suppose that you condemn George Washington and hold that your country ought to return to allegiance to her gracious majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. As a loyal Briton, I, of course, applaud this view, but I fear it may not win much support in your country.

Einstein wrote a thank you letter lamenting all the intellectuals in this country down to the youngest student have been completely intimidated. And so he felt it was his duty as an older person with a lot less to lose to speak up because other people were afraid to.

And in Einstein's point, he's like, you guys have completely misunderstood. He says Einstein believed he was being a good rather than a disloyal citizen. He had read the First Amendment and felt that upholding its spirit was at the core of America's cherished freedom, which he loved. That's why he wanted to live in America.

Even when his opinions caused outrage in the media, he wouldn't stop sharing them. He took a boyish American glee at his freedom to say whatever he felt. I can barely pronounce English. I can't pronounce French. Hold on. Okay, I'll try to say that. I have a quote from Einstein here. I have become a kind of enfant terrible. I'm going to define that for you. A person whose unconventional or controversial behavior or ideas shock, embarrass, or annoy others. He's not a...

have become. You've been like that your whole life, buddy. I had become kind of... in my new homeland due to my inability to keep silent and to swallow everything that happens. Besides, and this is the most important part in why I'm reading section two, besides, I believe that older people who have scarcely anything to lose ought to be willing to speak out in behalf of...

those who are young and are subject to much greater restraint. Sorry, he's much older. He had stomach issues his whole life, so we're very close to him dying. And he's got some reflections on how to go about doing that process and how he thought about life, which is interesting. So I want to talk about his last year. about close to his last year of life, he knew that the aneurysm in his abdominal aorta should soon prove fatal, and he began to display a peaceful sense of his own morality.

When he stood at the graveside and eulogized the physicist Rudolf Leidenberg, the words seemed to be ones he felt personally. This is such beautiful language. Brief is this existence. as a fleeting visit in a strange house. The path to be pursued is poorly lit by a flickering consciousness. He seemed to sense that this final transition he was going through was at once natural and somewhat spiritual.

The strange thing about growing old, he said, is that the intimate identification with the here and now is slowly lost. One feels transposed into infinity, more or less alone. Einstein made it to his 76th birthday. A few days later, he learned of the death of Besso. This is one of his friends. The friend he had met six decades earlier upon arriving as a student in Zurich. And they were friends their entire life.

As if he knew he only had a few more weeks, Einstein ruminated on the nature of death and time in the condolence letter he wrote to Besso's family. He has departed from the strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn illusion. And the stomach aneurysm indeed explodes.

So he knows he's dying, and this is his response to impending death. A group of doctors convened at his home the next day, and after some consultation, they recommended a surgeon who might be able to repair the aorta. Einstein refused. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share. It's time to go. I will do it elegantly. And to wrap this all up

Any true understanding of Einstein's imagination and intuition will come from how his mind worked. The explanation that Einstein himself most often gave for his mental accomplishments was his curiosity. As he put it near the end of his life, I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. Curiosity has its own reasons for existing, he once explained. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life.

of the marvelous structure of reality. There was an aesthetic to Einstein's thinking, a sense of beauty. And one component to beauty he felt was simplicity. He had echoed Newton's dictum. Nature is pleased with simplicity. He would aim for simplicity and beauty, and beauty for him was simplicity.

And that is where I'll leave it for the full story. Read the book. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes on your podcast player, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. That is 187 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.