News

Memoirs of Einstein's confidante record scientist's political beliefs

Memoirs of Einstein's confidante record scientist's political beliefs

Retired Firestone Library curator Alfred Bush recently discovered a diary written by one of Albert Einstein's closest friends which chronicles the famed scientist's musings and everyday activities during the last years of his life.In the diary, Johanna Fantova, a map curator at Firestone Library in 1953, describes Einstein's opinions on everything from current events and politics to music and physics."Fantova's manuscript concerning Albert Einstein and their friendship is full of human interest," Don Skemer, University curator of manuscripts, said."This material will be of interest to the many Einstein researchers around the world, as well as to people here and in Germany who are interested in the life and times of one of the 20th century's greatest thinkers," Skemer added. Fantova and EinsteinFantova met Einstein in 1929 in Berlin and renewed the friendship in the United States during World War II, according to Gillett Griffin, curator of the University's pre-Columbian art collection and mutual friend of Einstein and Fantova.Fantova's manuscript reveals that the two often spoke on the telephone, went sailing on Lake Carnegie and saw films together."Fantova kept a diary of Einstein at the same time I was going to Einstein's house for dinners," said Griffin, who still possesses the cushion Einstein sat on in his sailing boat.Fantova compiled notes from her conversations into a 62-page manuscript written in German, with more than 200 diary entries.According to Griffin, Einstein realized Fantova was recording their conversations and also gave her an important scientific manuscript on unified field theory, knowing that Fantova could sell the works in the future."He knew Fantova was poor and sent her poems and a scientific manuscript as an insurance for her financial security," Griffin said.Fantova hesitated for many years to take notes on her conversations with Einstein but was convinced in the last years of his life that "these monologues were of great interest as historical documents, since they illuminate the man and his era," she wrote. ConversationsIn Fantova's accounts, much of Einstein's ruminations were devoted to the political affairs of the day.

NEWS | 04/29/2004

Physicist arrested for fraud

A resident of the Stanworth apartment complex, which houses some faculty, was arrested Saturday following an investigation by Princeton Borough Police into alleged credit card fraud.Randy Baadhio, 38, was charged with credit card fraud, forgery, identity theft and theft by deception.The investigation began when A1 Limousine, which was conducting business with Baadhio and suspected him of fraudulent credit card use, alerted University Public Safety of their suspicions.Baadhio acquired at least seven credit cards under different identities and may have used them to obtain between $2,000 and $4,000, Borough Police Lt.

NEWS | 04/29/2004

Students win new Princeton Prize

The University recently recognized three high school students for their dedication to improving race relations within their communties.Jacqueline Akyea and Zainep Mahmoud, both of Washington, D.C., and Shan Shan Nie, of Boston, were the first recipients of the Princeton Prize in Race Relations, an alumni-initiated honor.The award began as an idea of Henry Von Kohorn '66 while he was serving as the chair of the National Committee on Schools."I saw the number of the kids doing good work, and I thought it would be nice to find a way to recognize their accomplishments," Von Kohorn said.With overwhelming alumni and administrative support, he formed the Princeton Prize Committee and organized the award process.

NEWS | 04/29/2004

Einstein museum hidden away inside Nassau Street store

Little do passersby know that inside Landau's store on Nassau St. ? beyond the sales rack of scarves and sweaters and the model ram ? is the nation's only museum dedicated to Albert Einstein.

NEWS | 04/29/2004

UPS truck crashes into Whitman College construction site

A parked UPS truck next to Patton Hall rolled backward into part of the Whitman College construction site Friday evening, getting lodged between a hill and a fence.

NEWS | 04/29/2004

RIAA sues three members of University

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is taking legal action against three University community members in the latest wave of lawsuits filed in an effort to curtail online music piracy.The trade group filed 477 lawsuits Wednesday on behalf of its member companies against people it believes to be illegally sharing copyrighted music online. Purported college piracyAccording to an RIAA press release, 69 of those people are users who connected to the Internet from 14 different colleges and universities across the country, including Brown and Michigan State universities.RIAA Spokesman Jonathan Lamy said the group would not confirm the number of people targeted at each school.However, University Counsel Clayton Marsh '85 said that three people at Princeton have been cited, according to an email he received Tuesday evening from RIAA president Cary Sherman.The suits target those "who were sharing illegally hundreds and hundreds of copyrighted songs with millions of strangers on the Internet," Lamy said.In the last eight months, he said, the RIAA has filed more than 1,000 lawsuits in an attempt to create an environment where online music distributors will have a chance to "compete and flourish." 'John Doe' lawsuitsThe industry has recently taken action through "John Doe" lawsuits, which identify defendants solely by their Internet protocol addresses.At this stage in the process, the RIAA does not know the identities of the people they have sued, Lamy said.The RIAA will soon request subpoenas that would compel Internet service providers to identify the defendants based on IP addresses.

NEWS | 04/28/2004

Deignan holds shirts pending legal advice

At a meeting Wednesday morning, Dean of Undergraduate Students Kathleen Deignan told Taylor Bright '05, the student whose Newman's Day t-shirts were confiscated Friday, that she would need to consult with University counsel before returning the shirts.Deignan said she was concerned that by giving the shirts back, the University would be contributing to infringement on actor Paul Newman's right to publicity because his image was used on one of the two shirt designs.

NEWS | 04/28/2004

Trustee explains role of board in University affairs

University Vice President and Secretary Bob Durkee '69 and trustee Raj Vinnakota '93 spoke about the role of trustees to a crowd of less than 20 people in McCosh 10 Wednesday evening.The discussion, billed as a town-hall meeting, was the second in a series of events attempting to demystify the activities of the University's administration, USG President Matt Margolin '05 said.The town-hall meeting was also the first time a trustee has had a question-and-answer session with undergraduates in a public setting in recent years, Durkee said."What we're trying to do is really just make things more transparent," said Margolin, who helped plan the event.

NEWS | 04/28/2004

Effects of grade proposal debated

Just days after the faculty voted to approve the anti-grade inflation proposals, University members are starting to come to terms with the implications of that vote.Earlier this month, the Committee on Examinations and Standing released the proposals, which aimed to limit A-range grades to 35 percent in undergraduate courses and 55 percent in independent work.

NEWS | 04/28/2004

U-link adds to online facebook craze

While the thefacebook.com's popularity has been rising steadily since it was first introduced just a few months ago, a group of Princeton undergraduates have been developing a similar endeavor since early March.Michael Li '07, Ben DeLoache '07, Cindy Lee '04 and Reona Kumagai '06 began to develop a campus-wide, digital facebook prior to the arrival of thefacebook.com. The service, called "ULink," has over 230 registered users and can be accessed by all students with a Princeton NetID and password, at ulink.cs.princeton.edu.The four students thought of the idea towards the end of February.

NEWS | 04/27/2004

Honeymoons on Prospect

It is Thursday, April 22, and Jessica Leutzinger '04 arrives on time at McCosh 10 for a meeting about graduation tickets.

NEWS | 04/27/2004

Gould's research sheds light on structural changes in brain

Deep in the bowels of Green Hall, professors aren't the only ones making noise. The monkeys are just as loud.In elaborate cages packed with spinach and other greens, colorful obstacles and fruit-filled logs, a colony of 44 marmosets ? a type of New World monkey ? are living under intense scrutiny.What they, and other animals like them, have shown has overturned one of the central dogmas of neuroscience by disproving the idea that mammals are born with all the neurons they will ever have. Innovative studiesFor more than a decade, psychology professor Elizabeth Gould has conducted dozens of innovative studies in rats and monkeys, demonstrating that new neurons are constantly produced in the adult brains of mammals, including primates.Her work may have wide-reaching significance, from better understanding how we store memories and react to anxiety and stress to the possibility of repairing damaged brain parts.To get to this stage, though, it is necessary to start with monkeys.A group of small primates native to South America, marmosets have a characteristic that make them particularly interesting to study.

NEWS | 04/27/2004

University to allow on-campus vote drives

Following a change in University policy last week, the College Democrats and Republicans are now permitted to conduct voter registration drives in common areas on campus.

NEWS | 04/27/2004

Physics Nobel recipient recounts path to prize

What do you do with an eight-ounce, 23-karat Nobel Prize? Philip Anderson, professor emeritus of physics and 1977 Nobel Prize winner keeps his stored in a safety deposit box.Anderson, a theoretician in the field of solid-state physics, remembers the day he won the coveted prize for an idea called localization as if it were yesterday."In 1973 there were rumors that my name was being linked with the Nobel Prize," Anderson said, "and they were just rumors, I had no reason to believe them.

NEWS | 04/27/2004

University offers profs subsidized housing

As anthropologist Anne-Maria Makhulu pondered whether to accept an appointment with the University's Society of Fellows last year, Princeton's prestige, picturesque campus and distinguished faculty could not assuage her anxieties about a more mundane problem: the cost of living in the upscale suburbia of the Princeton area."We couldn't come to Princeton if we didn't get housing through the University," said Makhulu, a University of Chicago Ph.D.

NEWS | 04/26/2004

Miner, 77, leaves lasting legacy

Earl Miner, a popular emeritus professor of English and Japanese literature, died on April 17 at the age of 77 after an extended illness.

NEWS | 04/26/2004

Grade inflation plan passes

In an almost 2 to 1 decision, the faculty voted Monday to approve the anti-grade inflation proposals released earlier this month by the Committee on Examinations and Standing.

NEWS | 04/26/2004

Appel condemns seizure of Newman's Day shirts

Computer science professor Andrew Appel introduced a resolution at Monday's faculty meeting crticizing Dean of Undergraduate Students Kathleen Deignan's decision to confiscate nearly 400 Newman's Day shirts from a student dorm room Friday."Censorship of speech is repugnant to academic values," the resolution stated.

NEWS | 04/26/2004

Most Popular