Walter Isaacson Quote
After three weeks of lectures and receptions in New York, Einstein paid a visit to Washington. For reasons fathomable only by those who live in that capital, the Senate decided to debate the theory of relativity. Among the leaders asserting that it was incomprehensible were Pennsylvania Republican Boies Penrose, famous for once uttering that public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel, and Mississippi Democrat John Sharp Williams, who retired a year later, saying, I’d rather be a dog and bay at the moon than stay in the Senate another six years. On the House side of the Capitol, Representative J. J. Kindred of New York proposed placing an explanation of Einstein’s theories in the Congressional Record. David Walsh of Massachusetts rose to object. Did Kindred understand the theory? I have been earnestly busy with this theory for three weeks, he replied, and am beginning to see some light. But what relevance, he was asked, did it have to the business of Congress? It may bear upon the legislation of the future as to general relations with the cosmos. Such discourse made it inevitable that, when Einstein went with a group to the White House on April 25, President Warren G. Harding would be faced with the question of whether he understood relativity. As the group posed for cameras, President Harding smiled and confessed that he did not comprehend the theory at all. The Washington Post carried a cartoon showing him puzzling over a paper titled Theory of Relativity while Einstein puzzled over one on the Theory of Normalcy, which was the name Harding gave to his governing philosophy. The New York Times ran a page 1 headline: Einstein Idea Puzzles Harding, He Admits. At
After three weeks of lectures and receptions in New York, Einstein paid a visit to Washington. For reasons fathomable only by those who live in that capital, the Senate decided to debate the theory of relativity. Among the leaders asserting that it was incomprehensible were Pennsylvania Republican Boies Penrose, famous for once uttering that public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel, and Mississippi Democrat John Sharp Williams, who retired a year later, saying, I’d rather be a dog and bay at the moon than stay in the Senate another six years. On the House side of the Capitol, Representative J. J. Kindred of New York proposed placing an explanation of Einstein’s theories in the Congressional Record. David Walsh of Massachusetts rose to object. Did Kindred understand the theory? I have been earnestly busy with this theory for three weeks, he replied, and am beginning to see some light. But what relevance, he was asked, did it have to the business of Congress? It may bear upon the legislation of the future as to general relations with the cosmos. Such discourse made it inevitable that, when Einstein went with a group to the White House on April 25, President Warren G. Harding would be faced with the question of whether he understood relativity. As the group posed for cameras, President Harding smiled and confessed that he did not comprehend the theory at all. The Washington Post carried a cartoon showing him puzzling over a paper titled Theory of Relativity while Einstein puzzled over one on the Theory of Normalcy, which was the name Harding gave to his governing philosophy. The New York Times ran a page 1 headline: Einstein Idea Puzzles Harding, He Admits. At
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About Walter Isaacson
He has been the president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C., the chair and CEO of CNN, and the editor of Time.
Isaacson attended Harvard University and Pembroke College, Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. He is the co-author with Evan Thomas of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986) and the author of Pro and Con (1983), Kissinger: A Biography (1992), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), American Sketches (2009), Steve Jobs (2011), The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (2014), Leonardo da Vinci (2017), The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race (2021) and Elon Musk (2023).
Isaacson is an advisory partner at Perella Weinberg Partners, a New York City-based financial services firm. He was vice chair of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which oversaw the rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina, chaired the government board that runs Voice of America, and was a member of the Defense Innovation Board.