You’ll likely have to climb onto the lap of the Albert Einstein Memorial in Washington, D.C. to touch his nose. When you do legend says your IQ score will soar. Get a picture for your social media or your photo album with the man who theorized the law of relativity. Think of a creative way to photographically express your encounter with this famous physicist.
Appropriately, the sandal-shod bronze statue sits, literally, on the steps of the National Academy of Sciences. The 12-foot (3.7-meter) monument was unveiled on April 22, 1979, marking the centennial of Einstein’s birth in Germany. Look closely at the manuscript in his left hand to see that the page’s final entry is the famous equation E=mc2. The sculptor, Robert Berks, has given the impression that Einstein is pontificating the important law relating energy, mass and light.
On the steps are three inscriptions of Einstein’s quotes that apply as much to being human as they do to being a scientist. Notice the celestial map at the base of the statue that accurately shows spatial relationships of the planets, sun, moon and stars as they were on the monument’s opening date. These celestial bodies are represented by metal studs in a 28-foot (8.5-meter) slab of emerald pearl granite from Norway.
Try the interesting effect at the statue of standing in the middle of the astronomical map, looking at Einstein and speaking or singing in his direction. Your voice will echo back, but only in this location. You’re welcome to sit on Einstein’s knee and have your picture taken with this representation of one of the world’s greatest scientists.
Find Albert Einstein Memorial on Constitution Avenue, across the street from the National Mall and near the Vietnam and Lincoln Memorials. His location on the grounds of the National Academy of Sciences is appropriate, as he was one of its members until his death in 1955.
