EXPLANATIONS TO THE BLIND

COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 18 Nov 2009

Dietrich Fischer

Someone asked Albert Einstein at a party:  "Oh, you are Albert Einstein, could you please explain me your relativity theory in three or four sentences?" 

Einstein thought for a while, then he said, "I am very sorry, it is not really possible to explain relativity theory so quickly, but I will at least try to explain you why not. 

Once I went for a walk with a blind man on a warm summer afternoon.  After a while we came to a restaurant and sat down at a table.  I asked him, ‘Would you like a glass of milk?’  ‘I know what a glass is,’ the blind man said, ‘but what is milk?’  ‘Milk is a white fluid,’ I replied.  ‘Aha, I know what a fluid is,’ he said, ‘but what is white?’  ‘White is the color of swans,’ I explained to him.  ‘I know what a color is, but what are swans?’  ‘Swans are big birds with a crooked neck.’  ‘Oh, birds,’ the man exclaimed, ‘I have heard of birds.  And what is crooked?’  I took his arm, stretched it and said, ‘This is straight,’ then I bent it and said, ‘and this is crooked.’  The man’s face turned into a happy smile and he said, ‘Now I finally know what milk is.’"

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 18 Nov 2009.

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