This Week on “In Retrospect, Not the Best Comparison”

Here are the opening sentences of Chapter Five of my book:

When most people hear “scientist,” they think “Einstein.” Albert Einstein is an iconic figure; not many theoretical physicists attain a level of celebrity where their likeness appears regularly on T-shirts. But it’s an intimidating, distant celebrity. Unlike, say, Tiger Woods, the precise achievements that Einstein is actually famous for remain somewhat mysterious to many people who would easily recognize his name.

And now we can add, “and some achievements should really stay mysterious, thanks just the same.”

22 Comments

22 thoughts on “This Week on “In Retrospect, Not the Best Comparison””

  1. That said, I think spreading the Good News of general relativity is a fine idea. Think about it – the field equations on t-shirts, graffitied on walls and chalked on sidewalks. And where are all of the Einstein equation tattooed theoretical physicists, anyway?

  2. You’re right, I hope it didn’t get published that way — but I don’t have the final product in front of me right now, that was copied from the original ms.

  3. Well, both Einstein and Tiger Woods were douchebags to their wives. Just goes to show that just because a person is massively successful, or appears to be “wise” to the outside world, doesn’t mean they are like that in their personal lives. Ultimate lesson: a man who cheats on his family doesn’t deserve the world’s admiration, but is a douchebag (and yes, a world’s greatest (anything) of all-time can still be an a**hole).

  4. @Paul Murray: race has nothing to do with it; rather, it is Woods’ cultivation of his image that makes this newsworthy (well, to some).

  5. @Paul Murray & Pieter Kok:
    I would say that there are two sides to this coin. On one hand, Tiger Woods probably wouldn’t be as famous as he is if it were not for his racial background, so when his media star falls, it cannot be isolated from his race.

    So, while I agree with Paul that were he a white golfer, this wouldn’t be the issue that it is, if Tiger were a white golfer, very few people would care who he was in the first place. In that sense, I think Pieter is closer to the truth in spirit, even if his contention that race has nothing to do with it is false.

  6. Well, I’m not an American, but I’m not sure race has much to do it. US media went crazy about Bill Clinton all the same.

  7. Tiger Woods has other things that make him really stand out among other golfers, though: he’s a young golfer, and a really good one. When he won The Masters during his first year as a pro golfer, he was the youngest person to ever do so, as well as the one to do it by the largest spread ever.

    So while race may have played a part here, there’s no reason to believe that another young golfer with his accomplishments wouldn’t have achieved similar fame.

  8. Perhaps the point is that it’s not all that unusual for a man or a woman to enjoy some sexual variety when it’s available. Not everyone does it, true, but it looks like at least half do. So what?

  9. For Einstein something has not to be forgotten and this is that he his coming from Parmenides and Zeno of Elea which were close to Einstein’s work on relativity ; he is not very special, but famous anyway.

  10. Frankly, I think the Woods brouhaha has more to do with the car crash grabbing so much attention. No one cared when the tabloids were printing claims that he was cheating on his wife. The public’s attention was drawn in by the original report that he was in serious condition and had to be pulled out of the car by his wife through a broken window. The interest in his mistresses came out of the rumors that the crash was really caused by Elin bashing his car window in.

  11. Someone once said “A man’s behavior is only as good as his options.” When you’re rich, famous, and good-looking, a lot of “options” make themselves available to you. Personally, I’d settle for rich and see what happens!

  12. Well, the rumor told me that Einstein was not a perfect husband nor father. After all, when Mileva and him were young they gave away their first kid… Also Einstein could be domestically violent, there are reports he had been menacing his second wife (or the first, I don’t remember) to crush her under a table he was hanging upon her head. … But who cares. He was a man, that the first who had never sinned throw him a stone… Same for Tiger or everyone of us, even whose who are not genius in something…

  13. Anonymous Snowboarder

    @Meng Bomin, Paul Murray & Pieter Kok

    If Jack Nicklaus at his prime had been exposed to have had sex outside his marriage with not just one but *many* women (and possibly unprotected) while his wife and small child went to his many tournaments I think there would have been just as much outrage and publicity. Add to the Tiger story is his hoof in mouth comment in a story only a few months back about how he and his family are never in the news because they have such a boring life. No, Tiger has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with the hypocrisy of a gift athlete cultivating a squeaky clean image so as to further pad his pockets with endorsement money and then being exposed as a hoser.

  14. Here’s the deal: I’ll let you have “He’s being persecuted because he’s black” if you’ll give me “He was only famous in the first place because he was black”. OK?

  15. “After all, when Mileva and him were young they gave away their first kid”. True, but irrelevant. This was what ANY couple would have had to do at that time and place. One can certainly argue that it was probably better for Lieserl.

  16. Update: I checked the final copy of the book, and the original grammatical atrocity was indeed fixed along the way, so I’ve updated the excerpt accordingly.

  17. I thought that the main question was the unasked and unanswered, “What the hell was his wife doing with a nine iron out in front of the mansion at 3 in the morning?” Spouse of pro golfer or not…. That’s pretty unusual. What’s the nominal sentence for assault with a deadly weapon in FL?

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