Still, Einstein’s office gives off special vibes to this day. The aura of a long-departed major presence suffuses it, and crossing its threshold is like entering a sanctum. One cannot help but think: This is where probably the greatest scientist the world has ever known did his thing.
What do these traces tell us about Einstein and what he meant to humankind? Perhaps that whatever else can be said about him, he may be regarded as science’s one and only saint: Saint Albert.
I cannot think of another scientist who is as highly respected, even revered, not only by the general public but by many researchers. Even his foremost scientific biographer, Abraham Pais—a colleague at the institute and an impressive physicist in his own right—referred to him in terms usually reserved for biblical prophets. “A new man appears abruptly, the ‘suddenly famous Doctor Einstein,’” Pais wrote in Subtle Is the Lord. “He carries the message of a new order in the universe. He is a new Moses come down from the mountain to bring the law and a new Joshua controlling the motion of heavenly bodies. He speaks in strange tongues but wise men aver that the stars testify to his veracity.”
Einstein is universally regarded as a seer. The saintly image derives from his ethereal achievements, certainly (his description of time and space literally displaced the old scientific concept of ether), but also from his modesty, his obsession with social justice, and his penchant for treating everyone the same, whether janitor or king. He was a pacifist for most of his life, an understandable exception being the case of Nazi Germany. During the McCarthy era he was an outspoken defender of civil liberties.
It is hard to avoid the holy connotations that hang over the man. Einstein’s nimbus of silvery hair evokes a halo. His preserved eyes and brain are like saintly relics. And what did he do in his “miracle year” but perform scientific miracles? In this context, the Einstein museums, houses, and reconstructed offices may be regarded as shrines to his memory.
Einstein wanted his ashes to be scattered at a secret location because, like Moses, he didn’t want the place overrun by idolizers. He has become an idol nonetheless, a saint not of any religion but of reason and logic. He is a figure of unmatched status in the history of thought, and he may forever be.
