Freedom of Science

From Discover¹ magazine:

To make almost anything Einstein — be it a product, product name, or advertisement — you must first get past a small but powerful cabal that has included a marketing firm in Beverly Hills, the upper echelon of Israel’s Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a company owned by another Forbes top earner (a living one): Bill Gates.

This formidable group can veto a wide range of Einstein products, flying, perhaps, in the face of the “free, unhampared exchange of ideas” that Einstein favored in “all spheres of a cultural life.”

Under the term of his will, his estate eventually went to Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he had been one of the first governors. Long after his death, new laws of the United States gave the university exclusive postmortem rights to profit from the Einstein name and image and the control of the Einstein “brand.”

To represent its interests in Einstein’s commercial worth, the University worked with The Roger Richman Agency in Beverly Hills, whose mission was to protect the estates interests of such legendary figures as Wright Brothers, Rudolf Valentino and Sigmund Freud.

By the way Einstein is the fifth “Highest-Paid Dead Celebrity” according to a chart in the same article, behind George Harrison but ahead of Andy Warhol!

Now you know how World Year of Physics has become the Year of Einstein. The issue here is not about “free and unhampared exchange of ideas” but it is about how marketing powers control physics. Einstein, who detested any kind of authority, complained himself that he had been turned into a deity.

I claim that the establishment of the Einstein brand has turned Einstein’s original work into mythology. It is no longer possible to separate science from mythology. Do you agree?

Science cannot compete against marketing. Even the concept of “New Einstein” helps perpetuate the Einstein myth.  

Note: I’ve included the pictures to see if I will hear from the Roger Richman Agency!

1. March 2008, p. 51. This is the Einstein issue but I don’t think this article is online. [↩]

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