Dear Professor Einstein: Albert Einstein’s letters to and from children edited by Alice Calaprice, Prometheus, $24, ISBN 11591020158 Reviewed by Michael Brooks
“OUTSIDE all the birds are singing…and here we sit learning that tan d is equal to something divided by something else.” You can almost hear Tyfanny sigh as she writes to Einstein. “I wish I understood maths, for it is needed in astronomical calculations, I believe.”
Tyfanny loves astronomy and regularly breaks school rules to look at the stars using her friend’s telescope. Einstein writes back and encourages her to defy the eyes and ears of the authorities and carry on.
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It sounds like fiction, but it’s fact. Einstein may have been relatively busy with taming the Universe, but he nonetheless found time to respond to enquiries from children.
Dear Professor Einstein is a hugely rewarding book, liberally scattered with gems. Clotilde, the 12-year-old daughter of a Puerto Rican professor, surely made Einstein smile with her observations. “My father took me to Jamaica to see the Queen of England,” she told him. “Here in this university they all say she’s nice, but that you are more useful to humanity.” Forty-seven years have passed, Einstein is gone, the Queen’s still here, and that remains a valid viewpoint. If I haven’t convinced you to buy this yet, you should know that a portion of the cover price goes to UNICEF. What are you waiting for?
