The day Einstein went berserk

The incident was told in Faster Than The Speed of Light (2003) by João Magueijo [zh-'wow ma-'gay-zhoo].

'In the late 1930s, Einstein and Rosen wrote a groundbreaking paper on gravitational waves and submitted it to Physical Review. Back came a four-page report rejecting their paper. According to Rosen, Einstein was so furious that he shredded the report into little pieces, threw the debris into a bin, and kicked the bin in a rage, shouting and swearing for the next half hour. He also swore that he would never again submit a paper to Physical Review, and apparently he stuck to his word ... the funny thing is that, according to Rosen, the [journal's] referee had a valid point.'

The tantrum incident was recounted by physicist John Moffat who heard it from Nathan Rosen of the EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) fame.

Physics Today has a more detailed account about the refereeing angle of the incident (and who the anonymous referee was).

Magueijo by the way shares Moffat's view on the variable speed of light (VSL) theory.

[Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]

Technorati Tags: Albert Einstein, Einstein, gravitational waves, João Magueijo, John Moffat, Nathan Rosen, Physical Review, relativity, VSL