FGV 2026.2Questão 40de 60THOUGHTS ABOUT EINSTEIN By Ray Monk (Historical Note: Albert Einstein is widely considered the most famous and

THOUGHTS ABOUT EINSTEIN

By Ray Monk

(Historical Note: Albert Einstein is widely considered the most famous and influential scientist of the 20th century, renowned globally as a cultural icon of genius alongside historical peers like Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei. But it's good to keep in mind that his scientific triumphs owe much to his profound creative sensitivity. Einstein was passionate about music, especially the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And as a dedicated violinist, whenever he travelled, he always brought along his violin, which he had nicknamed "Lina.")

1. "Why is it that nobody understands me and everybody likes me?" Albert Einstein's question, quoted in the New York Times in 1944, acknowledges the great mystery of his celebrity. He was a popular, instantly recognizable figure during his lifetime, and has remained so more than seventy years after his death. Yet the theory of relativity, the work for which he is best known, is still, more than a hundred years after its formulation, beyond the grasp [além da compreensão] of all but a tiny minority.

2. Many attempts have been made to explain relativity to non-scientists, among them several by Einstein himself, beginning with his book Relativity: The Special and General Theory (1916, first published in English in 1920). It is still in print today, though despite having had so many readers it has not succeeded in persuading the general public to abandon fundamental intuitions about space, time, mass, motion, and gravity in favor of the deeply counterintuitive view of the physical world put forward by Einstein. Our minds and imaginations remain stubbornly on the side of Isaac Newton. In other words, most of us find it hard to shake [se livrar da] the instinctual belief that an apple falls to the ground because it is pulled there by the force of gravity, the same force that keeps the planets in their orbits.

3. Einstein himself we find both fascinating and endearing [cativante, adorável]. "[His] personality, for no clear reason, triggers [desancadeia] outbursts of a kind of mass hysteria," a German consul wrote to his superiors in Berlin during Einstein's visit to America in 1930. Wherever he appeared, the consul reported ruefully [com pesar], he attracted huge, worshipful audiences. Overwrought admirers [admiradores exaltados] crowded around him, wanting to kiss his hand, touch his clothes or gaze into his eyes. After his death in 1955, his body was cremated, but not before various bits of it had been removed and preserved. His brain became the prized possession of Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy. For decades, Harvey kept his treasure in two glass jars, one containing pieces of the cerebral cortex encased in transparent blocks, and the other, the cerebellum, floating in formaldehyde. After Harvey's death in 2007, the brain was transferred to the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland. Einstein's eyes, meanwhile, were given to his optician Henry Abrams, who kept them in a safe deposit box in New Jersey.

Adapted from the London Review of Books, 23 July 2026

With respect to the question at the beginning of the article—"Why is it that nobody understands me and everybody likes me?"—the information in the article most likely suggests the following: