Driving Mr. Albert

What could be cooler than taking a road trip across America carrying the brain of arguably the most brilliant man in history -- and in a Buick Skylark, to boot? The book by Michael Paterniti is on its face a very unique travelogue -- a preposterous idea turned into a reality show unlike any other -- and moreover the very fact that Einstein's brain was on board gives the story a cosmic tone. There is something extraordinarily fun and yet bizarre about this road trip, knowing that in a jar -- brought on board by an 84-year-old eccentric named Harvey -- there is the brain of an intellect so great that he "…toppled Newton and nearly three hundred years of science" and crafted the general theory of relativity (Paterniti, 5).

In his book Paterniti gives more than a dose of biographic information on Einstein. For example, after a physics professor criticized Einstein for not being a good listener, Einstein retorted, "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth" (Paterniti). Here is a journalist and an eccentric old man traveling west to California carrying, in the trunk, the brain of the man who opened the door to some of the most amazing scientific achievements of mankind -- space travel, the atomic bomb, electronics, an understanding of relativity -- including the fact that light has mass. The one flaw in the book: the author spends too much time sharing narrative about his personal life, which doesn't quite match with the flow of the story about Einstein, Harvey, the brain on board and the travel experiences while heading to California.

One interesting point revealed in the book is the fact that the FBI had investigated Einstein, thinking perhaps he was too left leaning. On the other hand, looking at the J. Edgar Hoover era, the FBI in hindsight is as well-known for paranoia as it was for catching the bad guys. The FBI's wrongheadedness notwithstanding, without a moment's equivocation, Einstein was the good guy, and Harvey, plus navigator Paterniti are just along for the ride.