On March 15, 1955, Albert Einstein learned of the death of his close friend Michele Angelo Besso at the age of 81. An engineer by training, Besso attended university with Einstein and worked with him at the Swiss patent office, serving as a supporter and sounding board to some of the great scientist’s early and most profound ideas. Upon hearing of his friend’s passing, and although he himself was ill with only weeks to live, Einstein sent a letter of condolence to Besso’s family in which he wrote this beguiling passage:
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Some might dismiss this passage as comforting words to a grieving family. But this was Albert Einstein writing, and Einstein knew a thing or two about time and space. He must have meant something here, perhaps something profound, but what? [Read more…] about Einstein, Immortality, and the Stubborn Illusion of Time
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