Proof that Einstein was a very patient genius

Throughout his adulthood, Albert Einstein must have endured a continual barrage of visits by unstoppable, if kindly intentioned, eccentrics. One, the persistent poet William Hermanns, later wrote a book called Einstein and the Poet.

Hermanns had four meetings with Einstein, one in their native, Hitler-infected, Germany in 1930, the others in 1943, 1948 and 1954, when Einstein was living in Princeton, New Jersey.

Hermanns took careful notes, painfully aware that someone, someday might be curious to know every word that was spoken.

The first conversation started well: "I could feel his clear brown eyes penetrating me so guilelessly that, losing my restraint, I blurted out, 'How did you become a genius?'" Einstein, with what comes across as whimsical bemusement, explained how as a boy he had become curious watching light travel through his window. Hermanns, setting the tone that he would maintain at their every meeting, took this as a challenge:

"Light travels? I never knew that," I interrupted.

Einstein's dark brown eyes opened wide. "What then is your theory of light?"

"Well, for me, light is when it is day, and dark is when it is night."

"Oh, come now, you are no longer in grammar school. Have you never had physics?" He sounded amused. "I expect you were ill at the time!"

I felt both stupid and anxious. Another comment like that, I thought, and he might dismiss me, with good reason. I muttered that the idea of light travelling had never crossed my mind, I was more interested in ... (I nearly said poetry but caught myself ...)

Hermanns spent most of the time reciting his poems, dropping names of famous people he had met or tried to meet, and trying to persuade Einstein to adopt and become the leader of whatever spiritual and political movements Hermanns had joined most recently. These included most of the world's major religions, a selection of smaller sects, and a hodgepodge of committees. Einstein declined the offers. The book is full of passages like this one:

"But Dr Einstein, it was you who inspired me to think cosmically and work for one world. I am your cosmic missionary."

"Come on, little Willi," he chuckled, "don't use such big words."

In the later visits, little Willi managed to drag with him to Einstein's house several relatives and friends, and a Reverend James. The latter launched a fierce tussle to bring Einstein to Jesus:

"You said, Dr Einstein, that space and time don't exist in reality. How true! Christ proved this almost two thousand years ago." Einstein, who was drawing on his pipe, immediately withdrew it from his mouth and scratched his head.

That was the final meeting. A few months later, Einstein died. Years later, Hermanns formed the Einstein-Hermanns Foundation, "dedicated to the world family of the Cosmic Man". He did this, he says, because "Einstein, entrusting me with the mission of changing the heart of Man, inspired me".

· Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly magazine Annals of Improbable Research (, and organiser of the Ig Nobel Prize