Thursday, June 9, 2022

Einstein's Name is Worth a Fortune

The Manchester Guardian has a long article on how Einstein's estate still makes money:
Einstein had been a well-paid man. His $10,000 salary at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton – roughly $180,000 in today’s money – was set by the institute to exceed that of any American scientist (“Isn’t that too much?” Einstein queried at the time). But his earnings in life were insignificant compared to his earnings in death. From 2006 to 2017, he featured every year in Forbes’ list of the 10 highest-earning historic figures – “dead celebrities” in the publication’s rather diminishing term – bringing in an average of $12.5m a year in licensing fees for the Hebrew University, which is the top-ranking university in Israel. A conservative estimate puts Einstein’s postmortem earnings for the university to date at $250m. ...

Despite Richman’s best efforts, some “seriously offensive” products, as he saw them, reached the market. When Richman discovered that a chain of stores owned by Universal City Studios sold a sweatshirt with the slogan “E=mc2: Shit Happens”, he successfully had the sweatshirt banned, and forced Universal to pay $25,000 in damages.

Here is a newly-posted video interview of an Einstein biographer. While the title is about an Einstein mistake, it has over-the-top praise for his genius.

2 comments:

  1. Dear Roger,

    If one point is to be taken by my today's presentation by mathematicians like you, it is this:

    *Give up* on your dearest Hilbert space.

    Instead, you may be allowed to embrace the Banach space, if you wish --- and if it helps your cause.

    But, remember, there's a nonlinearity in the very wavefunctions of the kind I propose[d]...

    ... Otherwise, in the ... err... ``ray'' in the oh! ... in the *Hilbert* space, ...

    ... But the Hilbert space is *linear*, ain't it? ... Are the Banach spaces similar too?

    Frankly, I don't know. Never have known by this moment, anyway!

    ... I hope you take the suggestion for further studies, for the simple reason that *I* never scored 100/100 in my entire school life, except at the GRE Q section, in which case, nothing of value ever resulted --- even when *many* others had happily been scoring those 800/800 for years, you know!

    ... So, over to you Roger, but remember, now, I am not always available for replies to your comments / hints / whatever!

    Best,
    --Ajit

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    Replies
    1. I mean, scoring 100/100 on maths! [Yuck! What a mindless stupidity? What cravings?]

      ... Good...

      Best,
      --Ajit


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