March 2026

In a speech in Paris 104 years ago Albert Einstein memorably said, “If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will say I’m a citizen of the world. Should me theory prove untrue, France will say I’m a German; and Germany will say I’m a Jew.”

Eleven years later, after his theory of relativity had been universally accepted, Einstein was forced to flee Germany with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in January of 1933. Later that year Einstein met with Winston Churchill at Chartwell, Churchill’s country estate, to urge the future prime minister to find homes at British universities for other German-Jewish scientists driven out by the Nazis.

Following this meeting with Churchill Einstein himself joined the mathematics department at the Institute for Advanced Study on the campus of Princeton University, where he remained until his death in 1955.

Seventy years later, in 2025, the Trump administration accused Princeton of antisemitism and froze $210 million in federal grants. Christopher Eisgruber, the President of Princeton, whose Jewish mother’s family had fled Nazi Germany around the same time as Einstein, disputed this accusation.

Einstein was welcome in The United States not only as a refugee seeking asylum from a murderous regime, but also a brilliant physicist whose genius would benefit the nation. Today the EB-1A visa is colloquially known as the “Einstein visa” because it provides a path for permanent residency for individuals with extraordinary ability, such as Nobel Laureates and Olympic Gold Medalists.

In 2001 the Slovenian model Melania Knauss (now Trump) received an “Einstein visa.” Alert readers (ARs) should note that this is my March column. This is not an April Fools’ joke.

One of the upcoming holidays worth celebrating with Schlafly Beer is Albert Einstein’s birthday, March 14th. Some ARs will recognize this as Pi Day, because it contains the first three digits (3.14) of the mathematical constant representing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

While ARs might agree that this is a particularly appropriate birthday for a mathematician, some nitpickers might point out that in Einstein’s native Germany he would have been born on 14.03.1879, not 03/14/1879. This too is not an April Fools’ joke. ARs who are familiar with European conventions will recall that the format for dates in Germany and Austria is DD.MM.YYYY, not MM/DD/YYYY, as it is in The United States; and that numbers are separated by dots and not slashes.

Nitpickers be damned. When Einstein became an American citizen on October 1, 1940 he would have renounced not only his German citizenship but also the German format for indicating dates. From that day forward his birthday was Pi Day and will remain so for all time.

Born on Pi Day, 1879.

Speaking of time, there’s another reason to celebrate Einstein in March. It’s the one month in the calendar year when one hour of time disappears. Early in the morning of Sunday March 8, 2:00 AM will instantly become 3:00 AM.

Pondering this phenomenon leads me to recall one of the few limericks I know that are suitable for a family audience:

There once was a lady named Wright
Who traveled much faster than light.
She left home one day
In a relative way
And came back the previous night.

One of the other clean limericks I know also relates to Einstein:

There’s notable family named Stein.
There’s Gert, and there’s Ep___, and there’s Ein___.
Gert’s poems are all bunk.
Ep’s statues are junk.
And no one can understand Ein.

For the benefit of ARs who may not already know, Gert refers to the poet Gertrude Stein; and Ep refers to the sculptor Jacob Epstein, both of whom were well known contemporaries of Albert Einstein, as was Winston Churchill.

Churchill, who was born in the same year as Gertrude Stein, outlived her by 19 years. He was born six years before Epstein and outlived him by six years. He was born four years before Einstein and outlived him by ten years.

Despite his German heritage, Albert Einstein didn’t drink beer because he thought it was bad for his health. He died when he was more than a year younger than I am now. Winston Churchill, who famously preferred whiskey, champagne and brandy to beer, lived to the age of 90.