Albert Einstein is the world-famous physicist. This article was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949). It was subsequently published in May 1998 to commemorate the first issue of MR‘s fiftieth year.

Isn't there a pattern jokingly called "Nobel disease"? I remember that it refers to cases where a laureate’s justified authority in one narrow achievement becomes overconfidence in unrelated science, medicine, politics, or philosophy. I did a PhD with a Nobel laureate and was able to observe this up close.