Page 22 - COM Outlook - Winter 2013

22 COM Outlook . Winter 2013
of energy for the electric plants, but he said
Earth was going to be destroyed by it if we
weren’t careful.”
A lover of jokes and zippy one-liners,
Einstein was also an aficionado of great
classical music, which could move him to
great depths of emotion. “He loved to play
the violin for me, and one day while he was
playing a piece by Mozart, he started crying
tears of sheer joy,” said Dr. Cohen, who
repeatedly beat Einstein in the brainy game
of chess. “It was so beautiful to behold
because he could reach such a profound
depth of feeling. To tell you the truth, it actu-
ally gave me chills. I was so moved when he
finished that I just had to hug him.”
Mentor, Genius, Friend...Einstein
After regaling friends, family members,
and colleagues with stories about his time
with Einstein, why did Dr. Cohen wait until
he had surpassed the age of 80 to publish
a book documenting his cherished relation-
ship with the peerless genius? “My family
always knew about my Einstein connection,
but I never mentioned it much academically
to anybody because I wanted my teaching
skills and executive accomplishments to be
my legacy—not the fact that I drove Albert
Einstein around for two years,” Dr. Cohen
explained. “But during my 80th birthday
party, all my kids, as well as several col-
leagues, said they thought it was time for
me to document my stories.”
Now that over 60 years had passed since
their initial meeting, Dr. Cohen sat down at his
computer, ready to tap into his memory bank.
“I began reflecting back on when I first met
Einstein, but as I started typing, it suddenly
felt as if someone else was doing the writing,”
said Dr. Cohen of the surreal experience. “I
could actually feel his presence in my head;
I am telling you it was the weirdest thing. All
I know is that the words flowed right
through me, which enabled me to
complete the book in just over two
months. I know I can’t prove this, but
I think Einstein wrote most of it. After
the book was published, he visited
me in my dreams several times. In
one of them, he actually thanked me
for doing it.”
Writing My Time with Einstein
proved to be a wonderful way for Dr.
Cohen to reconnect with his formida-
ble friend, who had a profound effect
on the trajectory of Dr. Cohen’s pro-
fessional life. “I was pretty lucky be-
cause he took me under his wing and
convinced me to be a teacher and
give back to society,” he explained.
“My goal was to make a lot of money
researching and creating new antibi-
otics, but Einstein said ‘You’re going
to be sorry if you make money your
motivation because when you get to
be my age, you’re not going to like
yourself.’ Right then and there, I decided I was
going to become a teacher.”
Although Einstein felt he was an inad-
equate husband and father, Dr. Cohen firmly
disagreed with Einstein’s harsh self-assess-
ment. “If I could have handpicked a father,
it would have been him because he was so
nice to me,” he admitted. “I wasn’t his kid, but
boy I felt like he was my father, mentor, and
hero. He treated me like I was his own son
and taught me so much about life, including
his philosophy that if you don’t fail at anything,
you never tried anything. All human beings
should be so blessed to have a teacher like
that in their lives. He was indeed a rare bird.”
about the surprising snack he had just in-
gested, his reply was bracingly honest: “I ate
it because it tastes good!”
Interestingly, for a man recognized as
the preeminent scientific mind of the 20th
century, it’s somewhat surprising to discover
that Einstein was actually a very sensitive
soul who suffered from low self-esteem and
constantly recriminated himself for what he
perceived to be his lack of skill in regard to
being both a husband and parent. “I was
surprised that his self-image was so low,”
stated Dr. Cohen of his intimate chats with
Einstein. “I had thought a man as exalted as
Einstein would have a strong sense
of pride and very high self-esteem.
But that simply wasn’t the case.”
Because he was dyslexic, Ein-
stein had been a poor student who
also had to deal with the withering
insults his mother tossed at him, such
as repeatedly calling him a “dummy”
and telling him he was the dumbest of
all her children. “As great as he was,
and with all the success that came
his way, he was so beaten down
because, in addition to his mother’s
cruel comments, the scientific world
had been calling him a nut for years,”
Dr. Cohen recalled. “His wife and
three children also criticized him for
being what they called ‘crazy,’ so I
would praise him about how great he
was. One day, I even told his wife it
would be nice if she could praise him
from time to time as well.”
During one of their numerous
conversations, the touchy subject of
World War II, which had concluded only a
year or so before the two had met, was dis-
cussed at length. Einstein was painfully aware
that although his General Theory of Relativity
revelation had led to many great scientific
advances, it had also hastened the creation
of the nuclear bomb. “We were talking one
day about how to stop wars because we were
both opposed to them, which is when he
told me about how much he had cried when
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were devastated
by nuclear attacks,” Dr. Cohen revealed. “He
talked to me about what was going to happen
with nuclear power; in fact, he worried about
it all the time. He knew it was a great source
Dr. Stan Cohen: My Time with Einstein