My Half-Hour with Einstein

Midway during my first year as a Princeton graduate student (1952-53), I was given a letter of introduction to Einstein. Over a year later I finally worked up my courage to use it and -- as a result -- enjoyed a one-on-one conversation with him in the study of his home on Mercer Street. I will describe how my chance to meet Einstein arose and what I can remember of our memorable (to me if not to him) conversation. Among other things, we discussed the bomb, the new state of Israel, fossil horse brains, and evolution. (``Has there really been enough \textit{time} for all those changes?'') We talked about the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky problem - though not by that name, and I believe that it was the ``Bohm version'' that he asked me about. (``Do you \textit{really} believe that if someone here measured the spin of an atom, it could affect the simultaneous measurement of the spin of another atom way over there?'') My major recollection is of my wish that I had been better prepared. As Ehrenfest once wrote: ``Nothing is shabbier than the feeling: now God has granted me the opportunity to meet this man, and I sat before him open-mouthed; how much I might have asked him -- but nothing at all occurred to me.''