Einstein died 50 years ago today

[bobbieinok]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,12269,1462418,00.html

Guardian story from April 18, 1955

Einstein as a Man

A Record of Goodness

We much regret to announce the death at Princeton, New Jersey, yesterday of Dr Albert Einstein. He was 76. Dr Einstein had entered hospital on Friday for treatment of arterio-sclerosis.

David Mitrany
Tuesday April 19, 1955
The Guardian

Even a layman can tell what made Albert Einstein famous as a scientist. But what was the secret of his truly amazing fame as a man - and fame is not the right word. For it was not anything like the gaping of the humble at some awe-inspiring oracle, or like the cheering of some mighty personage by an excited anonymous crowd. Rather it was something quite simple and human, a genuine personal affection by many thousands for someone they never knew or were likely to know personally. They may have heard that he was a great man, but somehow they seemed to know that he was a good man. Anything that came from him, anything connected with him, apparently could be taken on trust.

more....

[whistle]

1. Whatever happened to Einstein's brain?....

...I understand it was donated for study and research. Were any conclusions reached about whether his brain was that much different from normal human brains? Anyone read anything about that?

[Bunny]

4. Here's a good article:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05107/488975.stm


SNIP
Sometimes a man and his popular identity become indistinguishable, which was the case with Dr. Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who, during a 1955 autopsy of Albert Einstein, removed 2.7 pounds of gray matter from the physicist's skull, then took it home with him and kept it in a jar.
SNIP
And there it was, a "huge, rough pearl." Harvey reached into the skull, took hold of the brain and didn't let go. He dissected it into thin chunks, kept it in a soup of formaldehyde and toted it with him, from New Jersey to Kansas to California and back again over the years. He gave away bits of the brain to researchers, but always, the bulk of the prize was his.
SNIP
"He implied he had a right to take the brain. He did not. That's just simple theft," she said, still spitting mad five decades later. "I don't have a friendly thing to say about him.... How would you feel if someone stole parts of your ancestors? Harvey and the granddaughter met several years ago, when Harvey visited California, where Evelyn Einstein still lives today.
SNIP
Yet after safeguarding the brain for decades like it was a holy relic -- and, to many, it was -- he simply, quietly, gave it away to the pathology department at the nearby University Medical Center at Princeton, the university and town where Einstein spent his last two decades.
SNIP

[whistle]

8. Shit, who was entitled to Einstein's brain legally....

...this Dr. Thomas Harvey sounds like some sort of fascist eugenisist holding onto to this scientific relic keeping it from the rightful hiers in the name of science, conducting various secret experiments until until 50 years later, we learn that it landed in University Medical Center at Princeton, research home of Peter Singer:

<snip>
Fact Sheet on Peter Singer

This text courtesy Not Dead Yet!, 1999






Background
Peter Singer, recently appointed to a tenured chair at the Center for Human Values, begins his first semester of teaching at Princeton University in October, 1999. Princeton University is a prominent leader is shaping national policy on bio-ethics.

Singer is arguing for major policy changes: people with significant cognitive disabilities and infants with any known disability should be killed when there is a benefit to the non-disabled people around them to having them removed.

The first targets of Singer's proposed policy changes are people with cognitive disabilities, perhaps the most devalued members of our community. It is time for all of us to come together in strength to oppose any threat to any one of our brothers and sisters.

It's not about academic freedom, it's about hate speech.

<link to a recent appointment at Princeton> http://www.independentliving.org/docs5/singer.html

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. RIP the Quintessential Geek.

[beam me up scottie]

3. I love that picture.

R.I.P.

[Benno]

5. The Science Channel

is running a couple of programs about him today. Exploring Einstein: Life of a Genius and Einsteins Beautiful Equation

[walldude]

6. You'd think this would be bigger news

I mean really. How terribly sad that we honor rock stars, politicians, and religious leaders, but the smartest man in history? Nothing. No wonder the whole country is going down the crapper...

[libertypirate]

7. The curse of the INTP....

It comes down to competence, like other INTP's Einstein would rather be ignorant then wrong. Being wrong is ok, just not ok for an INTP person to be wrong. Here's the funny part INTP's like to point out when they are wrong.

What shows more competence then showing yourself up? Not much.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. What the ignited intercourse are you talking about? (nt)

[libertypirate]

14. the secret of his truly amazing fame as a man

He was fallible and he wasn't afraid of it.

[MoonRiver]

10. Wow, thanks for sharing.

I never realized. :eyes:

[karlrschneider]

11. However long our idiot species continues, Einstein's name will be

a significant one. My dad told me that he met him back in the 1930s. I often wondered if that was true, but I'd like to think it was...I knew
E = MC^2 about as soon as I could spell 'cat' and 'dog'. It did take a few more years to get a grasp on its sigificance...about the time they were blowing up atomic bombs at White Sands when I lived near there.

[dcfirefighter]

12. Albert Einstein

"Men like Henry George are rare unfortunately. One cannot imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form, and fervent love of justice." - A. Einstein

[JanMichael]

13. "Why Socialism?"

It always makes me laugh when writers intentionally ignore a very important, and generally well known, fact about a famous person. Like when Time made Einstein the Man of the Century and somehow, someway, didn't mention this.

"I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society."

I love the guy. Rock on Mr. Albert!!!!