[Berlin, Germany – 9:16AM, 26th of October, 1928]
I had been rather nervous about meeting Einstein.
That was somewhat embarrassing to admit.
Over the past several years, I had sat across from industrialists, politicians, bankers and men who controlled companies worth sums of money I still found difficult to comprehend. I had negotiated contracts worth millions, argued with chemists twice my age, and watched newspapers speculate that I might soon receive a Nobel Prize.
None of them had made me feel quite as though I were about to sit an examination.
Einstein did.
Perhaps it was because I knew exactly who he was.
To me, his name belonged in textbooks. His equations belonged on university walls. His photograph belonged in that peculiar collection of faces that seemed to represent human intelligence itself.
But to him, this was simply another afternoon.
He was sitting behind his desk when I entered, looking considerably more relaxed than I felt. He gestured for me to take the chair opposite him, and I sat down, placing my hat beside me.
He studied me for a moment before glancing down at the letter I had sent ahead.
"You wished to speak with me?"
His accent was unmistakable, though his English was perfectly comprehensible.
"I did, Professor."
I smiled, trying to settle myself.
"I've been wanting to meet you for quite some time. I've been a great admirer of your work for years."
That earned me the faintest smile.
"Have you?"
"Very much so," I replied.
I hesitated before adding, "Although, if I may say so, I think it is rather a shame the Nobel Committee didn't give you the prize for relativity."
His smile became slightly more amused.
"Ah. Yes. I have heard that opinion before."
"I understand why they didn't," I continued. "I believe it is an extraordinarily important theory, but it's not as though every prediction has been conclusively demonstrated. And there are certainly aspects of it that I think could be expanded upon."
He leaned back slightly, folding his hands together. "Expanded?"
"Perhaps 'refined' is a better word."
He nodded thoughtfully at my remark before stating, "Science is rarely finished."
"Exactly."
I smiled.
"And besides, I don't think there is much danger of someone simply disproving it."
Einstein gave a quiet laugh. "I should certainly hope not."
There was something wonderfully strange about saying that to him. I had spent years reading about this man. His theories had been taught to me as established fact. His name by the modern day had become almost synonymous with genius.
And yet here he was, sitting across from me in 1928, still actively working on his theories, still arguing with his critics, stumbling to keep his complicated familial ties together, all while still trying to understand what the universe was doing underneath.
Then Einstein tilted his head slightly, smirking. "Although, if you are concerned about the Nobel Committee, I believe you have rather more reason to be concerned than I do."
I knew immediately what he meant.
I sighed. "Yes. That."
He looked genuinely curious. "Aren't you receiving considerable attention for your work on that sulpha dye that has anti-microbibal effects? There has been some discussion of Stockholm."
"There has." I muttered while shifting uncomfortably in my chair. "But that's different."
Einstein's eyebrows rose. "Why?"
"Because I don't deserve it."
That seemed to genuinely surprise him. He sat forward slightly. "Oh?"
I looked down at my hands. "It is a useful invention," I admitted. "An important one, perhaps. But I didn't invent it because I wanted to make the world a better place."
I paused. "I invented it because I wanted to make sure my wife was safe."
For a moment, Einstein said nothing.
His expression softened.
"And that…" he said quietly, "is not a good enough reason?"
There was no grand philosophical argument in his voice. He said it with the sort of simple certainty that made me wish I could believe it as easily as he apparently did.
I smiled.
"Perhaps. But I won't be accepting it even if they do offer." I cleared my throat before continuing as I changed the subject. "Anyway, that's not actually what I wanted to talk to you about."
Einstein nodded, apparently content to let the subject drop. "You see, I'm friends with some people at the Royal Observatory," I lied. In truth I had given them a generous donation and told them to look at a specific star for a few months.
I reached into my case before lying again. "When I heard what they'd discovered, I asked if I might have a look at the preliminary data."
Einstein's eyes moved towards the folder in my hands.
"They are still processing it," I continued. "They intend to publish the results sometime next year, once they've finished checking everything."
"And yet you have seen the preliminary results?"
"I have." Acting solemn, after all, I knew what the results would prove.
He raised an eyebrow. "And you thought I would be interested."
"I thought you might want to see them before everyone else does." That statement earned me another faint smile.
"You are rather confident in your judgement of my interests."
I placed the folder on the desk and opened it. "There is a star called Cygnus X-1."
Einstein looked at the name.
"A star?"
"Yes."
I slid the first set of papers towards him.
"The observations suggest that it is part of a binary system. The visible star is moving around something which cannot itself be seen."
He began examining the figures.
"That is not particularly unusual."
I turned another page. "No, but the mass is."
His eyes stopped. I could almost see him mentally calculating the figures as his eyes scanned over charts.
I then pointed to a particular box. "The unseen companion appears to be extraordinarily massive, and yet there is no corresponding luminous object."
"Exactly."
He picked up his pencil.
For the next several minutes, he said nothing.
I let him work.
At first, his calculations were casual. Then they became more deliberate. He went back over the radial velocities, checked the orbital period and began working through the mass estimate himself rather than trusting the figures I had given him.
Eventually, he reached for another sheet of paper.
He started again.
I watched him.
There was something almost surreal about it.
The room was quiet except for the scratching of his pencil.
Finally, he stopped. "This mass estimate…" He tapped the paper. "…is larger than a neutron star could reasonably be."
"That is what my astronomer friend believes." Einstein frowned.
"Could the inclination of the orbit be misleading?...You said these observations were preliminary."
"They are," I answered.
"And yet you speak as though you already know the answer."
"I know what the evidence points towards." He studied me for a moment. I had to be careful. Very careful.
"You see," I said, "I thought you might want evidence that one of the more serious contrarian arguments against your theory of relativity may be false."
That caught his attention. "One of the objections?"
In answer I said, "The argument that your theory cannot describe sufficiently massive objects because the mathematics leads to situations which appear physically absurd."
He leaned back.
I continued.
"I'm not saying this proves every part of general relativity. It doesn't. And I'm certainly not saying it settles every argument you've had with your critics." I then tapped the observations before continuing.
"But this is an astronomical observation of something behaving precisely as your equations suggest a sufficiently concentrated gravitational field ought to behave."
Einstein looked down at the papers. "And you believe this object is sufficiently massive?"
"According to your own theories something that is 9 solar masses but invisible would have to be…" I left the statement open.
"That," he said eventually, "would be quite extraordinary."
"I thought so." Trying not to look slightly bemused.
He looked back at the orbital measurements. "And what would you call such an object?"
There were some questions I couldn't answer honestly without saying considerably more than I was prepared to. So I chose my words carefully.
I smiled.
"I don't know what you would call it."
That was technically true.
He returned to the papers. Eventually, he looked up at me. "What did you think would happen when you brought these observations to me?"
I considered the question. "I thought you'd calculate them yourself. I thought you'd realise they were interesting."
He gave me a look that suggested he thought I was being deliberately evasive.
I smiled. "I don't expect you to announce that you've discovered a new class of astronomical object based on a few preliminary observations. I simply wanted you to see them."
"Good." He glanced down at the papers again.
Then he asked a question I hadn't expected.
"What would such an object look like?"
I blinked.
"Well…"
I tried to picture it. The trouble was that I knew perfectly well what the modern illustrations looked like, but those images were based on concepts and observations that wouldn't exist for decades.
"Technically, not much."
Einstein raised an eyebrow.
"Not much?"
"You wouldn't actually see the object itself."
He waited.
"You'd see what it does to everything around it. Light would be distorted. Nearby stars would appear in strange positions. If there were enough matter falling into it, you'd have an enormously bright disc of superheated material surrounding it, but it probably wouldn't look like a disc…"
I paused, then gestured to a pencil on his desk; once he had nodded, I drew a basic image of the accretion disc.
"Though this particular one might not look like that. The gravitational pull of a singularity would be so strong that you could in essence see all sides of the excretion disc at once…even if that image would also be warped."
Einstein considered this. His eyes moved back towards the orbital measurements. "And that is what these observations suggest?"
I nodded in affirmation before putting on an expression as if in deep thought for several seconds. "I do wonder though…since gravity does indeed influence the trajectory of light…"
He seemed interested in what I was going to say. I smiled, deciding to give Einstein a concept that even by the modern day was almost impossible to actually test, but in essence there was nothing saying it couldn't work.
I mulled over my words for a few seconds before speaking. "I've had this thought since I read the works of von Soldner, that if we were to position a telescope in the right position, our own sun could act as a lens. Not a lens in the ordinary sense. But light passing close to the solar limb will be bent towards the observer's line of sight. The sun would therefore magnify objects behind it. Though in truth that telescope would have to be a very far way away…possibly hundreds of times further away from us than the earth is the sun."
He seemed to contemplate my statement for several seconds before looking at me and saying, "Thank you for giving me much to think about…would you be interested in continuing this conversation with my wife over supper?"
"I'd be delighted," I replied.