1.Alber's True Love Marcus Chown
Can there be anything now to say about Einstein？Dennis Overbye doubted it-until he stumbled into a debate at a scientific meeting on whether Einstein had cheated his first wife,Mileva Maric,out of her share of the credit for the special theory of relativity.To Overbye it was a revelation to hear the God-like Einstein described as“a philandere,a draft dodge,a flirt,a hustle,an artist,an errant son,an egregious poet,and a scuffling physicist”，“So the old boy had some juice in him after all,”realised Overbye,and resolved to concentrate on Einstein’s disreputable early years.
The cover ofEinstein in Lovefeatures a photograph of a young Einstein and a young Maric,implying that this is their love story.But,says Overbye,throughout his life Einstein was in love with only one thing：physics.The world thus gained the general theory of relativity-a sublime illumination of the ultimate nature of gravity,space and time-but it was a terrible misfortune for the women in his life.
Marie's life is heartbreakingly sad.A Serb raised near Belgrade,she was born with a congenitally dislocated hip.It condemned Maric to lameness.Desperate to be a physicist-an extraordinary ambition in a woman of her time-she arrived at Zurich's Federal Polytechnic School in October1900.There her“world line”crossed a certain Albert Einstein.
As a woman,the odds were of course stacked against her.To succeed,Marie needed to have a lot of talent and a lot of luck-the kind of luck Marie Sklodowska had when she found an equal partner in Pierre Curie.But not only did Maria find an equal,she fell in love with a light so blindingly bright that she plunged into the deepest shadow as her dreams withered and died.
Abandoned with their children,she became morose and depressed.Einstein cited this as his reason for seeking comfort with another,in an affair with his cousin Elsa.It was a typical act of self-justification.He dehumanised her so he could treat her appallingly without guilt-while he abhorred such dehumanising behavior in the outside world.
Overbye masterfully interweaves this tragic story with the story of Einstein's titanic struggles with general relativity and the quantum.Of all his ideas,Einstein considered his quantum explanation of the photoelectric effect-postulating that light was composed of quantum,later called photons-as the most revolutionary.
Of general relativity,the great achievement of Einstein's life,Overbye has much to say.It is almost impossible to believe that Einstein built such an edifice from the mere observation that a falling body is weightless and a requirement that the laws of physics appear the same to all observers.
In writingLonely Hearts of the CosmosOverbye could interview the living participants in the cosmological quest.Here,he has to breathe life into the complex personalities and events of a long-dead era-and he succeeds.
本文作者馬庫斯?喬恩（生於1959年），係美國科普作家，著有多種科幻小說，現為《新科學家》周刊的宇宙學顧問。本文是他寫的一篇書評。
2.Life in a Violin Case Alerander Bloch
The turning point of my life was my decision to give up a promising business career and study music.My parents,although sympathetic,and sharing my love of music,disapproved of it as a profession.This was understandable in view of the family background.My grandfather had tought music for nearly forty years at Springhill College in Mobile and,though much beloved and respected in the community,earned barely enough to provide for his large family.My father often said it was only the hardheaded thriftiness of my grandmother that kept the wolf at bay.As a consequence of this example in the family,the very mention of music as a profession carried with it a picture of a precarious existence with uncertain financial rewards.My parents insisted upon college instead of a conservatory of music,and to college I went-quite happily,as I remember,for although I loved my violin and spent most of my spare time practicing,I had many other interests.