Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Nautilus

    A Letter to Einstein from the Future

    by Steven Gubser & Frans Pretorius Sep 14, 2017 4 minutes

    We don’t believe in time travel, and we’re not into mysticism. But what if we could write a letter to Albert Einstein to tell him about gravity and black holes in a few paragraphs? We’d write something like this letter.

    Steven Gubser and Frans Pretorius
    Department of Physics, Princeton University
    July 2017 

    Dear Albert,

    First, you’re the greatest. The one equation in physics that everyone knows is = . magazine named you the Person of the Century. Einstein jokes aren’t told much anymore because everyone sees the punch lines coming from a mile away. We’ve got a gazillion nuclear weapons, but we haven’t blown ourselves up yet. In fact, the atom bombs dropped at the end of World War II are the only ones ever used to

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from Nautilus

    Nautilus3 min read
    Making Light of Gravity
    1 Gravity is fun! The word gravity, derived by Newton from the Latin gravitas, conveys both weight and deadly seriousness. But gravity can be the opposite of that. As I researched my book during the sleep-deprived days of the pandemic, flashbacks to
    Nautilus7 min read
    The Feminist Botanist
    Lydia Becker sat down at her desk in the British village of Altham, a view of fields unfurling outside of her window. Surrounded by her notes and papers, the 36-year-old carefully wrote a short letter to the most eminent and controversial scientist o
    Nautilus10 min read
    The Ocean Apocalypse Is Upon Us, Maybe
    From our small, terrestrial vantage points, we sometimes struggle to imagine the ocean’s impact on our lives. We often think of the ocean as a flat expanse of blue, with currents as orderly, if sinuous, lines. In reality, it is vaster and more chaoti

    Related Books & Audiobooks