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Daily Mail
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
How Albert Einstein found refuge from the Nazis in NORFOLK: Jewish physicist's letter reveals what he got up to during stay in log cabin amid 'plans for my assassination'
A fascinating letter by Albert Einstein revealing how he was enjoying the 'enviable solitude' of Norfolk while in hiding from the Nazis has emerged 92 years on. The genius mathematician first fled to Belgium after Adolf Hitler came to power and Jewish people began to be targeted. Although he had police protection, Einstein was still deemed under threat there, so he travelled by boat to Dover and was then driven to the Norfolk coast. His alien new surroundings as a guest of Conservative MP Oliver Locker-Lampson consisted of a tiny 9m sq hut consisting of a single room. But despite the lack of luxury in the cabin on Roughton Heath, near Cromer, Einstein informed son Eduard that he was enjoying his new surroundings and was spending most of the time doing maths. He added that, whenever he was cold, he would run around outside to warm up. Einstein started his letter to his son by confiding in him that he was aware of 'plans for my assassination'. He then cuttingly described the Nazi takeover of Germany as 'a revolution of the stupid against the rational'. Einstein added with gallows humour: 'It's a shame that an old fellow like me cannot have his peace and quiet. 'When you're dead, you don't get to enjoy it, unfortunately.' Einstein was on a visiting professorship at the California Institute of Technology CalTech the Nazis assumed power in Germany early in 1933. He was immediately personally targeted, with several raids on his flat and country house. When he landed in Antwerp on his return to Europe on March 28 he formally renounced his German citizenship. He remained in Belgium over the summer, but the threat of violence from the Nazis increased, particularly after the assassination of the philosopher and anti-Nazi figurehead Theodor Lessing in Czechoslovakia in August 1933. In early September, Einstein secretly escaped to England, where he was given shelter by Locker-Lampson. Although his whereabouts were intended to be secret, photographs of Einstein, guarded by locals with shotguns, were published in the newspapers. He received a small number of visitors at Roughton, including the sculptor Jacob Epstein who he sat for for a bust. On October 7, Einstein boarded a ship for the US, where he had been offered a position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He never returned to Europe before his death in 1955. The two-page letter in German, signed 'Papa' and sent from Cromer on September 23, 1933, reads: 'Times have been rather turbulent since my last letter. 'It was actually reported in the newspapers that there were plans for my assassination. 'As a result my police protection in Belgium was increased so much that I did not want to bother any more. 'So for more than three weeks now I have been near the English coast in enviable solitude. 'My little house, in which I live alone, has an area of roughly 9 m2 and consists of a single room. 'Outside the door you have immediate access to Mother Nature. I spend most of the time doing mathematics and run around outside when I get cold.' The letter, which remained in the Einstein family until 2001, is now being sold by a private collector at London-based auctioneers Christie's with a £20,000-£25,000 estimate. The auctioneers say this is one of a very small number of letters Einstein wrote while temporarily resident in England. Thomas Venning, books and manuscripts specialist at Christie's, said: 'It's a lovely example of Einstein's sense of humour, even in the most stressful possible circumstances. 'He is at serious risk of being assassinated by the Nazis, but still gets in a joke about how you get plenty of peace and quiet when you're dead, but sadly don't get to enjoy it. 'His opposition to the Nazis was significant: the line in the letter about the victory of Nazism being the 'revolution of the stupid against the rational' was one that he reused in later years, and the Nazis knew that his international prominence and unstinting criticism of them was a threat. 'The other theme in the letter is his love of peace and quiet and his love of nature: in some ways being stuck in the middle of nowhere in a one-room that is quite a dream scenario for Einstein. 'He really asked nothing better than being left alone to think about science, with the minimum of creature comforts. 'Of course, there is something slightly incongruous about a world-famous figure like Einstein hiding out in a hut in the Norfolk countryside, and there is something slightly Dad's Army-like about the photographs of him sitting outside his hut, guarded by locals with shotguns. 'The fact that these were published in the British press at the time somewhat reduced the effectiveness of his 'top secret' hideaway.' The sale takes place on July 9.
MTV Lebanon
18-02-2025
- Science
- MTV Lebanon
Groundbreaking Discovery on Mars Could Be Proof of Life
New evidence of rippling water on Mars could change our understanding of the planet's history. Planetary astronomers and geologists studying Mars have known for decades that water was once present on the planet. The Red Planet is now known as a dusty and cold world, but billions of years ago water flowed on the planet's surface. Its atmosphere thinned over time, causing water to evaporate. Scientists believe this was likely due to the planet losing its magnetic field which left it vulnerable to solar radiation, causing the planet's water to evaporate into space. The new discovery adds further context to the ongoing debate about the form Martian water took and how long it lasted. Some models suggest that any liquid water on the Martian surface would have been covered by sheets of ice before it vanished into the atmosphere. However, the new findings suggest a different scenario that is very exciting as the search for alien life continues. Pictures taken by NASA's Curiosity rover show patterns known as wave ripples. They're small structures that resemble ridges that form along the shores of lakebeds, suggesting that liquid water must have flowed across the planet's surface at some point in its history. The ripples were found in two separate lakebeds in Gale Crater, which Curiosity has been exploring since August 2012. Both dry lakebeds likely formed around 3.7 billion years ago, suggesting that the Martian atmosphere was both dense and warm enough to support liquid water for much longer than previously thought. Why is this so exciting? Because life as we know it needs water to thrive and evolve and its therefore a key component in searching for evidence of ancient life on Mars. If living organisms were ever present on Mars, the new findings indicate they had a longer window in which they could have evolved. The study's first author, sedimentologist at CalTech, Claire Mondro, said: "Extending the length of time that liquid water was present extends the possibilities for microbial habitability later into Mars's history.' Mondro added: 'The shape of the ripples could only have been formed under water that was open to the atmosphere and acted upon by wind.' The study was published in the journal Science Advances. Scientists recently discovered more about the origins of Marsquakes and NASA's Curiosity rover snapped pictures of iridescent twilight clouds in the Martian sky.
The Guardian
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Sidelined: The QB and Me review – hot cheerleader meets star quarterback movie is streaming-age bubblegum
Dallas (Siena Agudong) is a hot cheerleader with dreams of auditioning for CalTech. Drayton (Noah Beck) is a cute star quarterback whose dad is adamant he follow in his footsteps and attend his alma mater with a football scholarship. Surely this very well-matched chalk and chalk couple will never overcome their complete lack of differences and get together? Only time will tell. A slickly made, nicely shot high-school movie adapted from a Wattpad story with an Instagram-ready cast, the biggest surprise here is James Van Der Beek popping up in a thankless role as the humourless dad. We know from The Rules of Attraction and Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 that Van Der Beek's tastes are on the edgier side, but don't tune in if you're expecting any subversive humour; this is a straightforward and edge-free romance for younger teens. The script is laden with examples of what execs will be hoping is authentic Gen Z argot, though lines such as 'I am sick and tired of your main character energy' sound like they've been plucked from A Handy Guide to Understanding Your Teen. Visually the film has a bit more to offer, effortlessly adopting the onscreen grammar of countless high-school movies before it, so we get all the slow-motion corridor walks and flawlessly executed cheer-squad routines we could hope for. It's all pleasant enough, in a glossy, wallpapery kind of way, but it's hard to get caught up in a plot with so few surprises and dialogue so relentlessly sincere. Frank Lloyd Wright famously described television as chewing gum for the eyes, but what's less discussed is that Henri Peyre, professor of French at Yale University, coined a similar phrase a little earlier in 1944, in relation to cinema: 'They dutifully chew their gum to keep from yawning, while absorbing the chewing gum for the eyes of the movies.' This applies here: in the era of streaming, there's a vast amount of ocular movie gum being pumped out, including this little piece. That's not even necessarily a bad thing: who doesn't love a stick of bubblegum every now and then? Still, we cannot live on gum alone – it's hard not to long for the bonafide hits of the high school genre, which manage to be be both bubblegumesque and have a flavour that lasts. Sidelined: The QB and Me is on digital platforms from 17 February.
