Cool story, but what Einstein does here--escorting a stranger out of a concert for a private music listening training session--is downright strange and socially odd, by most standards. Did he feel he had a license to do this because he was one of the most famous people in the world? Or was he so wrapped up in his own brilliance that he didn't even notice what was a bit socially deviant?
You think he seems arrogant here? Maybe he didn't care that he was being a bit socially deviant! :-)
My impression is he was just too excited about "opening up yet another fragment of the frontier of beauty" to worry about adhering to the social standard!
Anyway, thanks dfield for posting, this was a fun read!
Interesting that you call trying to teach someone about music soically odd, but by not commenting imply that it is totally normal to sit in a concert ignoring the music. Perhaps social norms are not all they are cracked up to be, and a little "out of the box" thinking can be good. Or even thinking out of space and time :-)
Einstein asked a question, the writer said he did not understand the music. Okay so most people would perhaps have just tried to "explain" the music in the intermissions - but I doubt that would have the same effect.
One of Einsteins skills was explaining logic in simple easy steps to build up a very complex picture. For me this story (be it true or not) shows his brilliant tutalege in action :)
People whose opinion I care about aren't that fussed about other being "a bit socially deviant". Apparently Einstein had similar views, so I feel I'm in good company.
Society progresses only by the friction created by all those unreasonable eccentrics.
I believe this, AND I was just playing the advocate. Note that belief and approval are orthogonal. I think this is really happening, altough I do not really approve it.
There is a rather strong and noble tradition among great physicists of being a little bit off the beaten track. Read Feynman. The bets between Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne at Caltech. There wasn't a lot that was conventional about Einstein.
