THEME MUSIC
"Facade", Sir William Walton, 1921
AUTHOR
“We never met, but any friend of Banesh Hoffmann’s is a friend of mine”. Mis-attributed to Einstein.
INTRODUCING STEPHEN ROSEN
STEPHEN ROSEN, a specialist in cosmic radiation and nuclear astrophysics, learned relativity from Professor Banesh Hoffmann — a co-author, colleague, and collaborator of Albert Einstein. During the ‘cold war’, Dr. Rosen worked at Los Alamos and at a prominent think tank addressing issues of national defense and science policy, and later a visiting scientist at the Institut d’Astrophysique in Paris and Centre d’Etudes Nucleaire in Saclay. At the end of glasnost and perestroika, he helped 400 Russian émigré scientists from the former Soviet Union find employment in their specialties in the U.S.
HIS PHYSICS ARTICLES have appeared in science journals Physical Review, Nature, Nuovo Cimento, and his op-ed and popular essays in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The East Hampton Star. His best-selling book Future Facts is listed as one of 100 important books of the 20th century. Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffmann said his book, Career Renewal (co-authored with his wife Celia Paul) “is the ultimate self-help manual for the intelligent job seeker”. After a recent stroke, he wrote: “Youth, Middle-Age, and You-Look-Great! Dying To Come Back As A Memoir”.
IN 2016, WHEN PICTURE BELOW WAS TAKEN, I am trying to explain relativity and recently detected gravitational waves, predicted by Einstein a century earlier, to the 6-year old twins in our family. They laughed at me.
THEY WANTED ONLY TO DISCUSS a certain body part of Einstein. So I decided to write a song to entertain and help them understand Special and General Relativity. Here’s that song, to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. You can sing along with me, which will cover up my bad voice. This song — which can be compared with Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, the Gershwins, and Stephen Sondheim — gave me the inspiration to do a Broadway Musical…like Hamilton! Fortunately, I scaled it down to a small irreverent musical revue.
PROFESSOR BANESH HOFFMANN (above) is one of the few scientists whose name appears on a scientific paper with Einstein. (The Einstein-Infeld-Hoffmann equations of motion describe the approximate dynamics of a system of masses due to their mutual gravitational attraction.) I learned Relativity from him.
BANESH TOLD ME how he and Einstein used to work together, side-by-side, at Einstein’s desk in the Institute For Advanced Study in Princeton during the 1930s. “Even Einstein would get stuck occasionally. He would say ‘I veel a leetle theenk’, and pace the floor, twisting his long hair. After a few moments, he would say,’I have it! Vee must make approximations!’” He would sit down, and sure enough, his idea would get us through the impasse.
“AFTER EINSTEIN DIED IN 1955, whenever I was working on the same field equations of General Relativity, I would get stuck. So I would get up from my desk, pace the floor, and twist my hair. But it never worked.”
***
“Even before earning his PhD, Stephen Rosen had quite a journey. After college and masters degree he found himself working on the front lines of the Cold War. His PhD came later and led him to become part of the legendary Hudson Institute and part of a group of BIG thinkers pondering the greater questions of mankind entering the nuclear age. His journey took a turn as he discovered an aptitude for helping people better define themselves and their career focus.”
AUTHOR
“We never met, but any friend of Banesh Hoffmann’s is a friend of mine”. Mis-attributed to Einstein.
INTRODUCING STEPHEN ROSEN
STEPHEN ROSEN, a specialist in cosmic radiation and nuclear astrophysics, learned relativity from Professor Banesh Hoffmann — a co-author, colleague, and collaborator of Albert Einstein. During the ‘cold war’, Dr. Rosen worked at Los Alamos and at a prominent think tank addressing issues of national defense and science policy, and later a visiting scientist at the Institut d’Astrophysique in Paris and Centre d’Etudes Nucleaire in Saclay. At the end of glasnost and perestroika, he helped 400 Russian émigré scientists from the former Soviet Union find employment in their specialties in the U.S.
HIS PHYSICS ARTICLES have appeared in science journals Physical Review, Nature, Nuovo Cimento, and his op-ed and popular essays in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The East Hampton Star. His best-selling book Future Facts is listed as one of 100 important books of the 20th century. Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffmann said his book, Career Renewal (co-authored with his wife Celia Paul) “is the ultimate self-help manual for the intelligent job seeker”. After a recent stroke, he wrote: “Youth, Middle-Age, and You-Look-Great! Dying To Come Back As A Memoir”.
IN 2016, WHEN PICTURE BELOW WAS TAKEN, I am trying to explain relativity and recently detected gravitational waves, predicted by Einstein a century earlier, to the 6-year old twins in our family. They laughed at me.
THEY WANTED ONLY TO DISCUSS a certain body part of Einstein. So I decided to write a song to entertain and help them understand Special and General Relativity. Here’s that song, to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. You can sing along with me, which will cover up my bad voice. This song — which can be compared with Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, the Gershwins, and Stephen Sondheim — gave me the inspiration to do a Broadway Musical…like Hamilton! Fortunately, I scaled it down to a small irreverent musical revue.
PROFESSOR BANESH HOFFMANN (above) is one of the few scientists whose name appears on a scientific paper with Einstein. (The Einstein-Infeld-Hoffmann equations of motion describe the approximate dynamics of a system of masses due to their mutual gravitational attraction.) I learned Relativity from him.
BANESH TOLD ME how he and Einstein used to work together, side-by-side, at Einstein’s desk in the Institute For Advanced Study in Princeton during the 1930s. “Even Einstein would get stuck occasionally. He would say ‘I veel a leetle theenk’, and pace the floor, twisting his long hair. After a few moments, he would say,’I have it! Vee must make approximations!’” He would sit down, and sure enough, his idea would get us through the impasse.
“AFTER EINSTEIN DIED IN 1955, whenever I was working on the same field equations of General Relativity, I would get stuck. So I would get up from my desk, pace the floor, and twist my hair. But it never worked.”
“Even before earning his PhD, Stephen Rosen had quite a journey. After college and masters degree he found himself working on the front lines of the Cold War. His PhD came later and led him to become part of the legendary Hudson Institute and part of a group of BIG thinkers pondering the greater questions of mankind entering the nuclear age. His journey took a turn as he discovered an aptitude for helping people better define themselves and their career focus.”