BOSTON — Before wandering through the Museum of Science with her father and younger sister, 7-year-old Emma Boardman had barely heard of Albert Einstein. However, after seeing demonstrations on Mr. Einstein’s groundbreaking contributions to the world’s understanding of light, time, energy and gravity, Emma said she understood why her teacher once called one of her classmates “an Einstein.”
“He was really, really smart,” she said of the physicist best known for formulating the theory of relativity.
“Einstein,” a touring exhibit that opened March 13 at Boston’s Museum of Science, is touted by organizers as the most comprehensive exhibition ever presented on the life and theories of the man whose name is synonymous with genius.
The exhibit uses interactive displays, a learning lab and computer simulations to help children and adults understand Mr. Einstein’s theories. However, it’s not necessarily a fun-and-games exhibit.
“It takes some effort,” says Hanoch Gutfreund, a professor and chairman of the Einstein Collection at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which loaned many of the items for the exhibit.
“You have to give yourself some time to read [the documents in the exhibit] and think about his theories,” Mr. Gutfreund says. “Afterward, you will have a sense of his basic ideas and what is new, what he has changed with respect to our previously accepted view of the physical world.”
Visitors can use an interactive blackboard to help them understand Mr. Einstein’s famous mathematical equation, E=mc2, and a kinetic light sculpture to visualize Einstein’s theories on the nature of light.
Visitors also are invited to get to know the man behind the scientific theories. Through handwritten letters, photographs and other artifacts, the exhibit traces Mr. Einstein’s life, from his birth in 1879 to his complicated love life to his years as a pacifist and political activist. Mr. Einstein was born in Germany and became a U.S. citizen in 1940. He died in 1955.
Visitors can see Mr. Einstein’s final report card from high school — on which he received outstanding grades in physics, algebra and history but a poor grade in French — and his 1919 divorce decree from his first wife, in which he agreed that she would receive the proceeds from the Nobel prize he would receive.
“Not ’if,’ but ’when’ he receives the Nobel Prize,” Mr. Gutfreund notes. Two years later, in 1921, Mr. Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics.
There is also a 1939 letter Mr. Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning him that the recent discovery of uranium fission could lead to the building of an atomic bomb by Nazi Germany. In his letter, Mr. Einstein urged the president to speed up experiments and secure a supply of uranium for the United States.
Mr. Einstein’s famous mathematical formula, E=mc2, expresses his theory that a large amount of energy can be released from a small amount of matter. The atomic bomb later proved this theory.
After the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, Mr. Einstein regretted sending the letter to Roosevelt. He later told Newsweek magazine, “had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing.”
The exhibit chronicles Mr. Einstein’s rise to prominence in the field of physics, from his first scientific paper at age 16 to his legendary paper on the theory of relativity.
The exhibit also shows how Mr. Einstein used his fame to advocate on political issues, including the establishment of a Jewish homeland.
There is a facsimile of a 1952 letter from Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Abba Eban, offering Mr. Einstein the presidency of Israel, and Mr. Einstein’s reply declining the offer.
The exhibit also features Mr. Einstein’s humorous side, including a famous photograph of him sticking his tongue out when reporters asked him to pose for his 72nd birthday.
A 1951 letter from a 6-year-old girl illustrates the public perception of him as an unconventional, wild-haired scientist. “Dear Mr. Einstein … I saw your picture in the paper. I think you ought to have your hair cut, so you can look better.”
The exhibit, which will be in Boston through June 6, drew large numbers of schoolchildren during earlier runs in New York City and Chicago, Mr. Gutfreund says.
Carmen Moore, a retired teacher from Lafayette, La., went to the exhibit while visiting friends in Boston.
“It’s just so fascinating, to see the things he wrote about and how it opened up our whole universe and our thinking about time,” she says.
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The Museum of Science is in Science Park, Boston. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday through Thursday and to 9 p.m. Friday. Admission is $13 for adults, $11 for age 60 and older, $10 for children 3 to 11.
For more information, call 617/723-2500 or visit www.mos.org.
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