“FOR us believing physicists, the demarcation between past, present and future has merely the significance of but a persistent illusion,” Einstein told the bereaved family of an old friend, a month before his own death. Hence the title of this intelligent, affectionate and sumptuous scrapbook of photos, facsimiles of original documents and choice quotations. Unfamiliar sights include his provocative missive resigning from the Prussian Academy of Sciences, and a photo of him in 1946 holding an infant (far left), which made me laugh aloud because of his exquisite comment: “It will certainly look like an Italian picture of the Madonna.” Reading this book feels like meeting…
