Untold stories about einstein

By Suraj Saraf

Albert Einstein, hailed as the scientist of the 20th century for his quantum theory and theory of relativity, that changed the concepts about universe, had his name popped up, in one untold story after the other, even decades after his death in 1955, as researchers delve deep and deeper in his life.

Just as his life had become a beacon for the physical science, research on his brain about three years back, had opened new line of study in the human cranial box about which neuroscientists are emphasising it may take a whole century, according to some of them even a millennium, to unravel its marvels and mysteries.

This incredible mass of the hundred billion cells called nurons communicate through innumberable junctions called synapses and complex molecules called neuro-transmitters, and hormones began to be looked into in the late nineteenth century, it began to be believed that bigger the brain, more intelligent the person concerned. Scientists started studying the brain in the late nineteenth century and assumed the bigger the brain, the more intelligent is the person.

With the passage of time, other theories began to be advanced viz that intelligence depended on the number of neurons or synapses and still more complex ideas, as research advanced more and more.

However, three years back when scientists at the Mcmaster University, Ontario, Canada, studied Einstein's brain to see what factors in it had made him that great genius (tops among the 20 most brilliant brains of the twentieth century according to Time magazine), the attention again turned to the size of the brain, but with a significant difference, because it was not the volume of the whole brain but a certain part of it.

In this research, the overall weight and measurement from front to back were same in his case as others under study. But in Einstein's brain, the inferior parietal region, part of the brain thought to be related to mathematical reasoning, was 15% wider on both sides (of the head) than normal.

Moreover, a groove that normally runs from front to back, and known as sulcus, did not exist all the way in his case. This according to some experts provided for a larger number of neurons to accumulate in this part of the brain and to establish connections between one another and work together more easily. This might have been the key to his genius, said the resarchers.

Not to speak of ordinary people, even intellectuals felt perplexed in making head or tail of his theory of relativity, even though he had attained international name and fame for that and his other work. So much so that once this amazing juggler of mathematical ideas, that Einstein, sine dubio was, himself lamented, ''Everybody talks about me, and nobody understands me. ''Indeed, how abstruse he could be, is highlighted in the following interesting story.

It all started one night when Corporal Richard Shere at the UN headquarters in Korea said to some soldier friends, ''There is no present. Everything is either past or in the future.'' The argument became so heated that Sherer decided to write to Einstein for a decision. However, true to his nature, Einstein's reply so foxed them that they decided to call it day.

Einstein's reply read. ''The time you are talking about is time from the psychological standpoint. You are rightfully of the opinion that the (psychological) present does not seem extended in times. However, from this one cannot conclude that the present does not exist. From the psychological standpoint it is more correct to say, the past and the future do not exist.

''What we call by these names are only present memories and present expectations. However, there does exist yet an objective time- what is called time in physics. Physical time knows only the chronological order of situations but no present, no past and no future.'' Had Einstein ayed or nayed the poor corporal can be the guess of any reader ?

Talking of letters by Einstein, one may also refer here to an incident how a small child once wrote to him asking to solve a simple geometrical problem which she (the child) did not understand herself. He was so given to the children that he stressed that in them lay ''the hope for the world.'' ''Let us hope,'' he once told children in Japan, ''that your generation will put mine to shame.''As such the fact that Einstein readily replied the child's letter solving the problem posed by her, will not surprise anyone.

Fifteen-year old Johanna and her classmates were unable to work out a simple problem in geometry involving the length of the common tangent of two tangential circles of known radii. Johanna recalled that Einstein had been an acquaintance of her grandfather and that Einstein was known as something of a mathematician, and decided he would be a good source of possible help. So Johanna wrote to the world-renowned theoretical physicist at the Institute of Advance Study, Princeton, New Jersey, where Einstein had worked for several years since seeking refuge in the United States. In a few days, she received from Einstein a reply with the solution to the problem sketched out in his own handwriting.

How curious that a person with so tremendous cerebral powers, also suffered from autism as also dyselexics, both diabilities linked with brain. Till just over two decades, autism was not even known. But later studies had revealed that many celebrities, past and present, were autistic patients. Such people lack social skills, fail to develop emotional relationships, have obsessions, behave bizarrely, may have limited language and may prefer to remain loners.

Einstein, it is said, used to lose his train of thought in the middle of giving a lecture. A very interesting incident relates to his research on gravity.

Once, while still in Germany, he climbed a ladder to change a picture on the wall. But suddenly he forgot the chord in hand, lost his balance and landed on the floor. As he got up he started speculating about his fall and it led him to take a critical analysis of the theory of gravitation concluding that there was no pulling down to any center of gravity and, indeed, there was no ''down'' or ''up'' in the universe. So on and so forth.

Dyslexics are persons who in childhood have specific learning difficulties which they could overcome only as they grow up. Einstein, Edison, Marcone were all this special types of persons viz dyslexics.

While in America, FBI and other agencies spied on him for many years, suspecting that he had been a Russian spy. Broad outlines of this history were making rounds since 1983. But new details have emerged very recently in a book ''The Einstein File'' by Fred Jerome.

The book underscoring that Einstein's politics had been neglected, adds that he was neither politically naive nor a closer communist. The book highlights him as an independent thinker, a sort of left leaning loose cannon whose views were his own, even if they coincided with those of groups whose activities attracted FBI scrutiny. The Book also holds that while in Berlin Nazis may well have tried to plant material to show him as a communist agent.

Having said all that, it may seem bizarre if someone asserts that Einstein was a plagiarist and that the essentials of Relativity had been propounded by a French mathematician Poineare, much before Einstein.

In a joint paper ''Relativity before Einstein'', two scientists over a decade back had said that a British physicist Maxwell was the first to enunciate clearly the principle of Relativity in 1877, in the essence it was understood today.

Maxwell's ideas were carried forward by Poineare and lorents into a ''consistent scheme'', pointed out the joint paper, adding that Einstein in his monumental paper had only synthesised the earlier ideas into a coherent system based on the Principle of Relativity of motion of material bodies and of absolute velocity of light.

Some may call it a case of plagiarism but more properly it should be called progressive development of a concept. Indeed, innovation, which in scientific parlance may be called invention, in any field does not appear suddenly as the achievement of a single individual. It is the end result of a step by step growth. In retrospect each new step reveals itself as a link in a chain. To have forged a new link constitutes a major step forward, till an inspired genius appears on the scene who takes a universal view of the problem and puts all those links into a coherent system.

Indeed, greater a celebrity, more he or she will be analysed, criticised and probed into for his or her achievements. That will continue even after his or her death.

PTI Feature

UTI bail-out, yet another delusion?

By S.V. Vaidyanathan

The celebrated economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, once wrote that there could be few fields of human endeavour in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance. In his book A short history of financial euphoria, Galbraith had said that, normally, it takes 20-years for the recollection of one disaster to be erased and for some variant on previous dementia to come forward to capture the financial mind. In the US, there was a superb regularity in the 20-year cycle from illusion to disillusion and back to illusion, as he put it so well. There are, however, exceptions to the rule.

One need not look beyond India for this. For the 20-year cycle he talked of could well be a four-year one or, perhaps, much less in this country. Seven years ago, when the Unit Trust of India faced a crisis following the controversial private placement of equity with Reliance Industries Ltd., the Finance Ministry wrote to the management of the Trust to firm up a proposal for restructuring. A presentation was then made to the bosses in North Block who were fondly referred to by the pink papers as the "A team".

The presentation finalised by the then Executive Trustee of UTI, Dr. P.J. Nayak envisaged the UTI being converted into a holding company and the setting up of an Asset Management Company. However, one of the much- acclaimed secretaries in this "A team" wrote on the file containing the proposal that the time was not appropriate for carrying out a restructuring exercise at UTI.

The cost of that "inappropriateness" has indeed been quite high for the country. Less than four years later, the first bail-out of the UTI took place. At that time also, it was written on files that this was the last bail-out for the UTI.

Again, in less than four years, towards the fag end of 2001, Cabinet approval was secured for another bail-out for the UTI. In less than a year later, the Government has announced another bail-out which will cover liabilities of the Trust, aggregating the 14,561 crore for US 64 and other assured return schemes.

In just a matter of a couple of months, all the bravado exhibited earlier by the bosses in North Block has disappeared. For a good part of the year, Finance Ministry officials had talked of not writing out anymore cheques and also of the unfairness of taxpayers yet again bailing out a section of investors.

In June this year, when the informal group on the financial sector had a meeting to discuss the UTI, a senior Government official suggested to Mr. Yashwant Sinha that it would be better to first tackle the Monthly Income Plans which were up for redemption in July and August, rather than get into future liabilities. Mr. Sinha then retorted that he had got enough of a hammering form the press on the UTI and wanted a complete restructuring. But, then, even he would not have imagined that a Group of Ministers, which included a Minister like Mr. Arun Shourie, who views any state-owned enterprise as a bleeding ulcer would back such a major bail-out package.

During those days when old files of the UTI were being dusted in North Block, a senior official once remarked that there was enough (evidence) in one room of the Ministry which could kill many people. He must have been joking.

For, almost close to a decade, despite there being enough explosive material in one room of North Block, life has been good for almost all those who led the Unit Trust of India.

When the MIPs were stopped at one point of time, the UTI Chairman, with the backing of India’s capital markets regulator, managed to persuade the Finance Minister to launch more MIPs in the interest of a level-playing field the private sector. The money so raised, this gentleman wrote, would be invested only in AAA-rated securities. Thus was born the MIPs in 1997 for which the Government is now writing out a cheque for protecting the capital of investors.

As over Rs. 20,000 crore of tax-payers money is shelled out for protecting the interests of one class of investors in the name of avoiding a systemic risk and to boost the market, there is no effort to take a look at fixing accountability on those responsible for this mess created over the last eight years or so. A former IFCI Chairman, known in Delhi as "Mr. Three Per cent’ now must be chuckling as the Government readies to write out another generous cheque.

Till date, there has not been any effort to nail down this gentleman who was in a tearing hurry during his tenure to go one up on the IDBI and the ICICI. Those high-cost borrowings he contracted without batting an eyelid have dragged the institution down along with those corporates to whom he lend happily.

In the view of the top bosses in the Ministry now, the IFCI cannot be allowed to die. Nor can it be allowed to default on its repayment obligations to even commercial borrowers. Oh well, IFCI is seen as a quasi-sovereign entity, goes the argument. It is difficult to spot a overseas lender who would admit to sharing the government’s perception of the IFCI’s perception as a quasi-sovereign entity. It is the same story in the IDBI. When the institution floated its IPO in 1995, a rival financial institution, which was the darling of the media and the market, was busy dumping the shares of the FI in the post issue phase. One call form New Delhi would have put an end to this. However, the "A" team in the Ministry was hardly bothered as the IDBI was state-owned. So why lose sleep?

Again, three years ago, when the IDBI came calling to Delhi to seek clearance for a package to help revive its fortunes, the response was indifference. Those were the glory days of ESOPS and so on. Having seen the cream of its officers moving out, the management wanted the approval of the government for an attractive package to retain young officers on the lines of its much hyped up rival, ICICI.

One of the sitting in the banking division would not have anything of this. There is no such need, this man decreed. The package has been in the deep freeze for the last three years. Well, as for the, is anyone talking of the opportunity cost to the nation and the damage done by his notings? Not all. For it is a safe bet that he would around to be a pall bearer for many of these institutions.

So, after the IFCI’s package, a relatively modest of tax-payers money would be provided to the IDBI also.

There is a promise of the capital requirement being only Rs. 500 crore which is small change after over Rs. 20,000 crore doled out to the UTI over the last few years.

Nobody now talks even fleetingly of the SUS 99 scheme floated in 1999 to bailout the UTI by separating the dud stocks of US 64. There is no mention now of the monthly reports that the Trust is supposed to send the Finance Ministry on the performance of the scheme. "Don’t worry old boy, we can always have a SUS 99 II," says a Ministry official. He is right.

For as Galbraith said only in the financial world is there such an efficient design for concealing what, with the passage of time, will be revealed as self-and general delusion. So, next time, when the government writes out a cheque for an entity in the financial sector, it can be reassured about this efficient design. INAV