EDGE: I like this idea of combing love and the universe.

OVERBYE: What else is there? Sex and physics.

EDGE: To what extent is our view of the universe, nature, ourselves, affected by ideas of love, or specifically the subject of your book, Einstein in Love?

OVERBYE: That's a big question. Of course, your view of the world is affected by your emotions, your hormones, every instant of the day. If there were a way to keep very precise track of your attitudes — and they would probably shift all over the place depending on how you are feeling — you might have a hard time defining exactly what the normal John Brockman is. People feel differently in the morning when they wake up than in the evening than when they go to bed. You may feel better after lunch. You certainly feel better if you're involved in some sort of a relationship and you have that kind of tingle, and there's a kind of promissory glow to the world.

I don't think you have to be a scientist to understand that. What it has to do with scientific creativity is what everyone wants to know. John Wheeler told me recently that I should do an experiment in which I get two groups of physicists and give one group Viagra and the other a placebo for a year, and then have a committee evaluate their scientific output during the time. He was basically joking, and I don't know if Viagra actually enhances desire or just ability. An evolutionary psychologist would say the whole point Einstein inventing general relativity was in order to get laid.

Mathematical theory is just another form of peacock feathers. That may leave women out of the equation, evolutionarily speaking, so I'm not happy with such a simpleminded explanation but I don't know the answer. It is generally thought that Einstein's last real scientific contribution was in the 1920s, when he invented Bose-Einstein statistics. At that point he was 45 or so, so he was at the point where theoretical physicists consider their creative lives over. But he certainly maintained a vigorous romantic life, with various affairs and so forth through the rest of his life in Berlin, which went on in 1933, and he seemed to have had a girlfriend in Princeton — the wife of a Russian sculptor — in the late 40s. If he was being less creative at that time, I don't think it was because he was necessarily feeling less sexy; he might have run out of ideas, or he might have been pursuing his mathematical dreams, a little too far from contemporary physics, or there was some evidence, And, in his biography of Einstein, Abraham Pais made the point that after about 1920, Einstein, who was a very driven man, was willing to relax and enjoy life a little bit more.

EDGE: What was the impact of Einstein's love life on his work?

OVERBYE: In some ways I don't think he would have gotten off the ground without Mileva around to bolster him and believe in him during his college years and right afterward. It very difficult time for him: his man professor hated him, he couldn't find a job. Einstein, however, knew he was smart. Mileva understood physics, and she was no slouch, she had spent her whole life being the only girl in boys' science classes. He could talk about physics with her, and get feedback, something that was enormously important to him his whole life long. She believed in him and she was not a frivolous person, so her opinion counted. That was very important at the time. There is no good evidence that she actually contributed substantially to the ideas behind relativity. But he was somebody who always needed somebody to talk to, and she was that person, for several years. He needed people to argue with specifically, he needed people to attack him intellectually, and he could fight back, and he loved it. It was his favorite thing to do.

EDGE: I like this idea of combing love and the universe.

OVERBYE: What else is there? Sex and physics.

EDGE: To what extent is our view of the universe, nature, ourselves, affected by ideas of love, or specifically the subject of your book, Einstein in Love?

OVERBYE: That's a big question. Of course, your view of the world is affected by your emotions, your hormones, every instant of the day. If there were a way to keep very precise track of your attitudes — and they would probably shift all over the place depending on how you are feeling — you might have a hard time defining exactly what the normal John Brockman is. People feel differently in the morning when they wake up than in the evening than when they go to bed. You may feel better after lunch. You certainly feel better if you're involved in some sort of a relationship and you have that kind of tingle, and there's a kind of promissory glow to the world.

I don't think you have to be a scientist to understand that. What it has to do with scientific creativity is what everyone wants to know. John Wheeler told me recently that I should do an experiment in which I get two groups of physicists and give one group Viagra and the other a placebo for a year, and then have a committee evaluate their scientific output during the time. He was basically joking, and I don't know if Viagra actually enhances desire or just ability. An evolutionary psychologist would say the whole point Einstein inventing general relativity was in order to get laid.

Mathematical theory is just another form of peacock feathers. That may leave women out of the equation, evolutionarily speaking, so I'm not happy with such a simpleminded explanation but I don't know the answer. It is generally thought that Einstein's last real scientific contribution was in the 1920s, when he invented Bose-Einstein statistics. At that point he was 45 or so, so he was at the point where theoretical physicists consider their creative lives over. But he certainly maintained a vigorous romantic life, with various affairs and so forth through the rest of his life in Berlin, which went on in 1933, and he seemed to have had a girlfriend in Princeton — the wife of a Russian sculptor — in the late 40s. If he was being less creative at that time, I don't think it was because he was necessarily feeling less sexy; he might have run out of ideas, or he might have been pursuing his mathematical dreams, a little too far from contemporary physics, or there was some evidence, And, in his biography of Einstein, Abraham Pais made the point that after about 1920, Einstein, who was a very driven man, was willing to relax and enjoy life a little bit more.

EDGE: What was the impact of Einstein's love life on his work?

OVERBYE: In some ways I don't think he would have gotten off the ground without Mileva around to bolster him and believe in him during his college years and right afterward. It very difficult time for him: his man professor hated him, he couldn't find a job. Einstein, however, knew he was smart. Mileva understood physics, and she was no slouch, she had spent her whole life being the only girl in boys' science classes. He could talk about physics with her, and get feedback, something that was enormously important to him his whole life long. She believed in him and she was not a frivolous person, so her opinion counted. That was very important at the time. There is no good evidence that she actually contributed substantially to the ideas behind relativity. But he was somebody who always needed somebody to talk to, and she was that person, for several years. He needed people to argue with specifically, he needed people to attack him intellectually, and he could fight back, and he loved it. It was his favorite thing to do.

EDGE: Probably hard to find people at that mental level that you'd also want to speak to.