Einstein in the Bath

The wood-panelled bathroom was just like a sauna. Hot steam filled the air, only to condense on the cold surface of the mirror above the sink and roll downwards in fat droplets. Some of the steam collected in the tangle of white hair atop the head of the bathroom's sole occupant, plastering it flat against his scalp. It was bathtime for Albert Einstein.

Professor Einstein looked forward to his weekly bath. It was a time when he could relax and enjoy the sensation of weightlessness in his aged limbs. It was a time when he could be alone and forget the mundane world. Most of all, it was a time when he could think.

Thinking time was precious to Einstein. When he had been a humble clerk in the Swiss patent office, there had been plenty of time for him to ponder the mysteries of the universe. Indeed, there were some people who said that this had been the most brilliant and productive period of his life. If nothing else, it had laid the foundation for his entry into the ranks of academia. But, in exchange, Einstein found that his precious time was lost to more and more things - teaching, meetings, paperwork. In 1933, he had emigrated to the United States of America. For a while his fame bought him time for research, but celebrity brought responsibilities of a different kind. He was constantly bombarded by requests for interviews and stopped in the street by strangers. It was only here, in the privacy of his bathroom, that Albert Einstein had the time to truly think.

The old man took off his bathrobe and hung it from the hook on the back of the bathroom door. Then he climbed into the bath and slowly lowered himself into the steaming hot water. As the warmth dissolved the fatigue that burdened his limbs, Einstein relaxed and turned his thoughts towards science. He had been working on what he called his 'Grand Theory' - an idea that would be as revolutionary as his General Theory of Relativity. The blackboards in his office were covered in chalked symbols and equations, giving tantalising glimpses into the possible. But, so far, Einstein had not been able to penetrate the cloak that hid the truth from him. Perhaps tonight his meditations would afford him an insight?

"Hello, Albert."

Einstein stiffened at the unexpected interruption. The sudden motion sent waves racing through the bathwater. "Who? What?" he protested, and peered through the steam in search of the intruder.

The steam in front of him started to solidify. "That's it," the voice said. "Keep thinking about me." there was something about the voice - a hint of an accent that Einstein recognised.

"Bohr! Niels Bohr!" Einstein grabbed for his washcloth and draped it over his private parts. "What are you doing here?"

"I've come to see you, of course," the Dane replied.

Einstein looked around the bathroom. The window was closed and the door was locked, its bolt slid into place. "How did you - ?" Then the elderly scientist stopped, a puzzled look on his face. "There are two things that occur to me. First, Niels Bohr is in Carlsberg. I know this for a fact. Second, the Niels Bohr I know is almost seventy. You look like he did when he was forty. From this, I can only conclude that you are not Doctor Bohr." Einstein pointed a finger at the intruder. "Which brings me back to my first question: who - or what - are you?"

Bohr - or the thing that resembled him - went to the bathroom sink and wiped away the film of moisture coating it. "Hmm," he mused. "An interesting question." He turned back to Einstein and smiled. "I am Niels Bohr. Or, rather, I am Niels Bohr as you remember him. I am your perception of him in his intellectual prime."

Einstein shifted uneasily in the bathwater. "You have not answered my question."

"I do apologise, Albert."

"You do not have that privilege. To you, I am Professor Einstein!"

"I apologise, professor." Bohr found a stool and sat down. "Very well. I am an entangled entity; a quantum image of your friend created from the memories that exist in your mind." Einstein snorted incredulously at this. "But I am as real as the Niels Bohr that you know."

"A quantum image? Then you are a mere phantom. If you were the real Doctor Bohr, you would know my opinion of the quantum theory he espoused."

"But I do know!" The interloper took a pipe from inside his jacket, looked at it for a moment, then returned it to its hiding place. "If I recall correctly, you said 'Der Herrgott würfelt nicht' - yes? But, Albert - I mean Professor Einstein - here I am. A practical example of the applications of quantum mechanics."

"You are no such thing! Ow!" Einstein grimaced and rubbed the spot on his shoulder where Bohr had pinched him.

"If I am a phantom, then how could I do that to you, eh? Come now, professor. You are one of the most intelligent men alive at this time. You cannot deny the evidence before you."

"One of?"

Bohr laughed. "There is no need for false pride."

Einstein laid down in the bath, resting his back against the enamelled metal. "Very well. I shall play along with this charade." He glared at his visitor. "

"But for now only. And, for the sake of peace, I shall grant that you may well be what you say you are and not just some hallucination. So, please grant me a courtesy in return and tell me why you are here."

"Could you tell me what the date is?"

Einstein was indignant. "You came here just to ask me the date? Such impudence. Surely a - what did you say you are? - an entangled memory such as yourself would know what date it is?"

"It's a matter of the Uncertainty Principle."

"Excuses!" Professor Einstein frowned in thought. "Today is Monday, the eleventh of April."

Bohr leaned forward, his eyes bright in the dim light. "What year?"

"1955, of course."

Bohr said something in Danish, then apologised sheepishly. "I am sorry, professor. Such language is not necessary. I would have hoped that I would have arrived earlier than this, that I would have had more time. However, it does mean that I will be able to get definitive answers to the questions I have."

"More time? Definitive answers?All you do is raise more questions. Well, your questions are not welcome here."

"Very well." The quantum image of Niels Bohr shifted on the stool and assumed a more comfortable position. "My present is approximately ten millennia into your future. I have been generated by a process related to quantum entanglement and projected back to your time. My creators gave me a mission to find out about your last work, your Unified Field Theory."

"My Grand Theory." Einstein nodded. "Yes. I have been working on a principle that will unite the forces that make up time and space, and will unify them in a single mathematical expression."

"And have you succeeded?" There was a hint of eagerness in the image's voice.

"No." Einstein shook his head, then glared at the figure sitting on the stool. "But if you are truly from the future, then you should know that."

"Again, I must plead the Uncertainty Principle."

"A convenient excuse." Einstein sighed and settled back to stare at the ceiling.

Bohr folded his arms and leaned forward. "But there is the possibility of a breakthrough?"

"Oh yes. Dimensional analysis shows a promising link between the electric force, the magnetic force and gravity. It involves a transformation of these from the spatial axis to the temporal axis."

"But what about the nuclear forces?"

"The nuclear forces?" Einstein shot his interrogator a confused glance. "What do you mean by those? Do you mean the nuclear binding energy?" He laughed, and his straggly hair shook. "That is not important. No." The elderly scientist waved a hand in dismissal.

"I see." Bohr sat back, closed his eyes and sighed. "Are you sure?"

"Of course!"

"Then there is no point in asking you any more questions. Thank you." Bohr stood up. "I apologise for interrupting your bath night, Professor Einstein. I shall go now." The bathroom steam swirled around the figure, threatening to engulf him.

"Wait!" Einstein struggled to his feet, water dripping from his naked body. "If these nuclear forces are important, then you must tell me about them!"

The image of Bohr wavered, then solidified. "They are very important. The strong and weak nuclear forces are two of the fundamental forces, but even in my era we have not yet determined how they interact with the other forces. My creators hoped that by sending me to question you, they might be able to obtain some information - some hint of a solution. If I had the time to explain them to you, then I would."

"What do you mean, if you had the time? Is something going to happen?"

Bohr lifted a hand to his face, as if to wipe away a drop of moisture or maybe a tear. "Albert, my friend. One week from today, you die. The aneurysm you were treated for gives way, and you have a stroke. Your end is swift. There is nothing that can be done to avoid this."

Einstein subsided back into the bathwater, his limbs and body trembling with the effort. "So. My theory?"

"You will never complete it. I am sorry."

"Ach!" For a moment, Einstein sat motionless in his bath. Then an idea occurred to him. "But your creators' knowledge of quantum mechanics allows for time travel?"

"Of a sort. It involves entanglement with an individual's memories. You see, thought is a quantum process - ."

Professor Einstein raised his hand for silence. "That is close enough for my purposes. Tell me, what is stopping you going back to a time earlier than this and explaining to me about these nuclear forces?"

"It would cause a temporal paradox."

"But, if I was to avoid writing it down then there would be no paradox."

"Do you remember such a thing happening, Professor Einstein?"

"No." Einstein looked hopefully at the image of his friend. "But surely that should not matter?"

"It does." Bohr gave Einstein a melancholy smile. "We cannot risk violating causality. While you may disagree with the implications of quantum theory, it does not stop them from affecting us. At best the attempt would fail. At worst it would cause a collapse into true vacuum. Most likely we would create a new timeline where you did complete your Unified Field Theory. Whatever happened, we - those of us who exist here - would not have the answer."

"I understand." Einstein's expression was now one of calm. "Goodbye, then. I am sorry, Niels, that I have not been able to help you or your creators."

"Perhaps. But we are no worse off than we were before. Thank you, Professor Einstein. And enjoy your bath."

Einstein laughed. "Niels, you know that I am always being mistaken for Professor Einstein."

The image of Bohr started laughing, the sound only ceasing when it had vanished back to whence it had come from.

* * * * * * *

This is probably the closest I have ever come to writing a story in the style of the Mirrorshades Movement. It stems from the debates between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr over the nature of the universe and whether quantum mechanics was a viable theory. Einstein thought that quantum mechanics was interesting, but ultimately flawed. Bohr believed that quantum mechanics would be just as important as the Special and General Theories of Relativity. In the end, the two never came to an understanding.

The debates spurred Einstein to attempt to formulate a theory of everything - his Unified Field Theory. He never did.

Einstein's last words in this story are his own. He did not like his fame and, when asked in the street if he was Einstein, he would reply, "I am always being mistaken for Professor Einstein."