At dinner with Einstein, keep quiet and listen

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2005

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Gillett Griffin was 24 in 1953 when he was given an invitation he could not refuse: dinner with Albert Einstein.

"What do you say to the greatest genius of the century," declared Griffin, one of the last people living to have met Einstein. "You say nothing, you listen."

Griffin did a lot of listening during the two years he knew the legendary mathematician who died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton in New Jersey where he had lived for the final two decades of his remarkable life.

Many of their encounters were over dinner at Einstein's home near the Institute of Advanced Studies where he worked. Griffin said he became a kind of "court jester" at the house of Einstein.

"With his last lady friend (Johanna Fantova), I worked in the...