The Einstein Prophecy

EPILOGUE

At 1:15 in the morning on April 18, 1955, Albert Einstein, suffering from a ruptured aneurysm in his abdominal aorta, abruptly sat up in his bed at Princeton Hospital and blurted out several words in German. Unfortunately, it was a language that neither of the night nurses understood. Then, he gasped for breath, twice, and died. He was seventy-six years old.

As he had directed, his body was cremated, though not before his brain had been surgically removed for further study. His ashes were scattered to the wind on the wooded grounds of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Days later, the English philosopher Bertrand Russell received in the mail the last communication that Albert Einstein had signed before his death. It was a letter authorizing Russell to append his name to, and make public, a document that came to be known as the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. Published in London on July 9, 1955, the manifesto was a stark declaration of the menace posed by the prospect of thermonuclear war, and at the same time, a dire prophecy of what might occur if the people of all nations did not find some way to live together in peace. In its closing, Einstein appealed to humanity’s higher instincts, asking the world to ignore its petty differences and quarrels in quest of wisdom and happiness instead. “If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise,” he predicted. “If you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”