Einstein in My Hometown
Karl Mamola, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
D
uring the 22 years Albert Einstein lived and
worked in the United States, he frequently
took long summer vacations. Generally he
chose quiet, out-of-the-way vacation spots, and be-
cause of his love of sailing, places close to bodies of
water. Among other locations, he vacationed at Sara-
nac Lake in upstate New York, the Rhode Island coast,
and, during the summers of 1937–39, at Nassau Point
on the North Fork of Long Island. Nassau Point is a
part of the small town of Cutchogue1 and is located
Fig. 1. Einstein and David Rothman at Nassau Point.
(Photo courtesy of the Southold Historical Society
and the family of Reginald Donahue)
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on Peconic Bay, about 90 miles from New York City.
It was an ideal spot for Einstein both because it was off
the beaten path and because of the outstanding sailing
conditions on Peconic Bay. Einstein rented a cabin just
a stone’s throw from the bay. I myself have a special in-
terest in Cutchogue because it’s the place where I was
born and where I spent the first few years of my life.
Unfortunately, I came along five or six years too late to
have actually seen Einstein there, but he did have en-
counters with some of my older friends and relatives.
There was one person in the Nassau Point area with
whom Einstein formed a special friendship. He was
David Rothman, the owner and proprietor of a small
department store in the nearby town of Southold. Ac-
cording to Robert Rothman, David’s son, they met
one day when Einstein came into the store and asked
whether the store carried sandals.2 Because of Ein-
stein’s heavy German accent, what Rothman heard was
“sundials.” Not having any to sell, he took Einstein
outside to see the one that was located in the backyard
behind the store and offered it to him as a gift. After
Einstein stopped laughing, he bought a pair of san-
dals (the store did carry those) and they became good
friends. Figure 1 shows them walking near Einstein’s
summer home.
Einstein and Rothman had many long conversa-
tions, sometimes until late in the evening. On one
occasion, the subject of relativity came up. Since Roth-
man had only very limited knowledge of mathematics,
Einstein offered to explain some of the concepts in
nonmathematical terms. He drew some rough sketches
and wrote a few notes on a sheet of paper. David Roth-
THE PHYSICS TEACHER ◆ Vol. 43, December 2005
 Fig. 2. The sheet of paper Einstein used in
explaining “without mathematics” some
aspects of relativity to David Rothman.
man saved that paper and it still exists (Fig. 2). When
Rothman protested that the explanation did in fact
include mathematics, Einstein replied, “But these are
so trivial!”3 The two friends were both violinists and
played together on a number of occasions4 (Fig. 3).
Einstein had a number of well-known visitors to his
cabin in Nassau Point. In 1937, the renowned Brit-
ish author and physicist C. P. Snow paid a call. Snow
was in the United States on other business, and when
he heard that Einstein was vacationing not far away
on Long Island, he asked his friend Leopold Infeld to
drive him out for a visit. They spent several hours to-
gether, talking mostly of international politics.5 That
same summer, the famous Hollywood actress Luise
Rainer paid Einstein a visit along with her playwright
husband, Clifford Odets. In those days Luise Rainer
was a top movie star. She won the Academy Award for
best actress in both 1936 and 1937. A number of pho-
tographs were taken during the visit (see Fig. 4, for
example) but not all survived. Einstein, in his interac-
tions with attractive young women, was well-known
to be rather flirtatious—and so he was with Luise
Rainer. Her husband became so enraged that after-
wards he cut Einstein’s head off one of the pictures.6
THE PHYSICS TEACHER ◆ Vol. 43, December 2005
Fig. 3. Einstein in Southold. (Photo
courtesy of the Southold Historical Society
and the family of Reginald Donahue)
The most important visitors Einstein had at Nassau
Point were the two physicists who came to call in July
of 1939. They were Leo Szilard, who was spending
that summer at Columbia University in New York
City, and Eugene Wigner, a professor at Princeton.
Wigner would later win the Nobel Prize for his con-
tributions to nuclear physics. The purpose of their
visit was to speak with Einstein about what they were
afraid was happening in the physics community in
Nazi Germany. They feared that people like Werner
Heisenberg were deeply involved in a secret program
to develop the world’s first nuclear weapons. Nuclear
fission had recently been discovered in Germany. A
short time later the German army occupied Czecho-
slovakia, and immediately an embargo was placed
on all shipments of uranium from Czech mines. The
Germans were obviously interested in uranium. But if
they were really planning on developing and building
nuclear bombs, Szilard reasoned that they would need
to acquire even greater amounts of uranium ore. The
obvious source at that time would have been the Bel-
gian Congo, which was known to have large deposits.
It happened that Einstein was well-acquainted with
the Belgian royal family, especially Queen Elizabeth,
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Fig. 4. With Luise Rainer at Nassau Point.
(Photo courtesy of Denis Brian)
who was a pianist. They had played music together
at the Belgian royal residence. Knowing all of that,
Szilard and Wigner wanted to ask Einstein if he would
be willing to send a letter to the appropriate Belgian
officials warning them of what Germany might be up
to.
So they headed out toward Nassau Point in
Wigner’s car, but when they got to the North Fork a
problem arose because they didn’t know the exact lo-
cation of Einstein’s summer home. They knew it was
somewhere around Nassau Point and that he was rent-
ing from a Dr. Moore, but that was all. When they got
to the general area, they began asking for directions to
Dr. Moore’s cabin. But no one seemed to have heard
of it. Szilard said afterwards7 that they drove around
for a half hour asking for directions and became so
frustrated they were about to give up and head back
to New York City. Then they saw a little boy, seven or
eight years old, walking along the road, and Szilard
decided to ask him; however, now he put the ques-
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tion differently. Instead of asking about Dr. Moore’s
place, he said, “Say, do you by any chance know where
Professor Einstein lives?” The boy did know and took
them right to Einstein’s place (but he had not heard of
Dr. Moore’s cabin).
Einstein was pleased to see his two visitors. They
were both Hungarian immigrants and he had known
them back in Europe. He served them tea on his front
porch and listened as they explained what was known
at the time about nuclear fission. Einstein had not
followed nuclear physics very well in the 1930s and
therefore much of what they said was new to him. He
understood it completely, however, and he certainly
comprehended the awesome consequences of Adolf
Hitler’s getting control of nuclear weapons. He agreed
that it was a good idea to warn the Belgians and dic-
tated a letter. Szilard took it down in longhand and
agreed to polish it up and have it typed for Einstein
to sign. But when Szilard got back to New York City,
he decided on a different plan. He became convinced
that it made more sense for Einstein, the world’s most
famous scientist, to write a letter to Franklin Roos-
evelt, the President of the United States. The letter
would describe the situation regarding uranium and
then they could just let the President deal with the
matter. Well, of course, Szilard would need to discuss
the change in plan with Einstein and so he prepared to
make another trip to Nassau Point. But Szilard didn’t
have a car—or a driver’s license. And now Wigner
wasn’t available—he was traveling to California.
However, Edward Teller, who was also at Columbia
that summer, was available. He had a car and agreed
to drive them out to see “the old man.” They made
the trip to Einstein’s place and then for the rest of his
life Teller enjoyed saying that his first appearance on
the physics stage was as Szilard’s chauffeur to Nassau
Point. Szilard conferred with Einstein and out of the
discussion came a now very famous letter (see Fig. 5),
addressed to President Roosevelt and bearing Ein-
stein’s Nassau Point address.8 It was written by Szilard
and signed by Einstein. However, Einstein would later
deeply regret doing that. He was a lifelong pacifist
and said afterward that if he had realized the Germans
had in fact not made much progress in their nuclear
weapons program, he would never have, as he put it,
“participated in opening that Pandora’s box.” Never-
theless, the letter was signed and was hand carried to
THE PHYSICS TEACHER ◆ Vol. 43, December 2005
Fig. 5. Part of Einstein’s 1939 letter to President Franklin
Roosevelt. (Photo courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt
Presidential Library and Museum)
the White House, where it made a strong impression
on the President. Roosevelt immediately established a
board to investigate potential uses of the element ura-
nium. Board members included scientists and military
officers. While the action of the President was almost
immediate, the step taken was only a very small one.
The initial allocation to the board was only $6000.
And it would be more than two years before the mas-
sive Manhattan Project was eventually launched.
There is some disagreement about how much actu-
al effect Einstein’s letter to Roosevelt had on the long
and complicated process that led to the development
of the first nuclear weapons. Robert Oppenheimer,
who led the Manhattan Project, thought the effect was
very small. Others disagree, believing that Einstein’s
involvement was a major catalyst, at least at the be-
ginning of the process. Since Einstein’s intervention
certainly had some effect, we can confidently say that
in some sense, the beginning of the nuclear age can be
traced back to a summer day on Einstein’s porch (see
Fig. 6) in the little North Fork town of Cutchogue—
my hometown.
Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Robert Rothman for providing
the source for Fig. 2.
THE PHYSICS TEACHER ◆ Vol. 43, December 2005
Fig. 6. Einstein and Szilard at Nassau Point.
(a 1946 recreation of the original scene—Getty Images)
References
1. When Einstein lived there, Nassau Point was said to be
a part of the nearby town of Peconic.
2. “Little Peconic Bay and E = mc2,” available at http://
www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/
ny-hs734a,0,7548406.story?coll=ny-lihistory-
navigation.
3. Chuck Rothman, Albert Einstein’s Long Island Summer;
http://www.sff.net/people/rothman/einstein.htm.
4. Peregrine White, “Einstein the Violinist,” Phys. Teach.
43, 286–288 (May 2005).
5. C.P. Snow, “On Albert Einstein,” Commentary 43, 45-
55 (March 1967).
6. Denis Brian, Einstein: A Life (Wiley, New York, 1996),
p. 305.
7. Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts, edited by Spencer
R. Weart and Gertrud Weiss Szilard (MIT Press, Cam-
bridge, MA, 1978), pp. 82–83.
8. The street address in Fig. 5 is incorrect. Einstein actu-
ally lived on West Cove Road, which is just off Old
Cove Road.
PACS codes: 01.60 and 01.65
Karl Mamola, a former resident of Cutchogue, is the
Editor of The Physics Teacher.
Physics Department, Appalachian State University,
Boone, NC 28608; tpt@appstate.edu
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