Einstein’s brain is on the loose. For 40-odd years the famous gray matter was kept in a tupperware container belonging to the elusive Princeton pathologist Thomas Harvey, who never quite managed to deliver on his promises to research its supposedly unique properties.
Over the decades Harvey and the brain disappeared from view, resurfacing from time to time to send a few slices of a lobe to persistent petitioners. Writer Michael Paterniti eventually tracked him down, and on a whim signed on to drive the octogenarian Harvey and the famous brain across the country in a pilgrimage of sorts, with a thought of returning it to Einstein’s granddaughter.
The American road is the setting for a surreal story. Einstein said: “We should take care not to make the intellect our god. It has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.” Paterniti’s is a journey with plenty of both.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Michael Paterniti, author of Driving Mr. Albert
Dr. Elliot Krauss, Chairman of Pathology at Princeton University Medical Center.