Wow, imagine actually having dinner with Albert Einstein
Imagine sitting there with imposter syndrome and thinking, "there is so much pressure on this conversation. I need to not only entertain someone much smarter than me, but I have to learn something profound that I can use as an anecdote for the rest of my life." Then looking down at your terrible 1920s German food while he nudges you to say something, but you just KNOW he talks about theoretical physics with everyone all day so he's probably bored of it. Besides you don't want to say something stupid like "Wow E=MC2 huh? That's somethin'. I figured it was MC or maybe MC3 but 2 wow."
But like if you talk about your dog he'll think you're simple so you've GOTTA work spacetime into it and learn something about spacetime so you can tell your grandkids and they won't think you're a loser. Imagine eating bread to calm your nerves and show that you're too busy to speak but then fixating on how much bread you're eating and wondering if Albert frickin' Einstein is judging you for that. And oh boy, now you have to say something EXTRA smart and NOT about theoretical physics to prove that you're not a bread-eating simpleton. Imagine having the opportunity to try to explain what you think spacetime is to Albert Einstein himself while your mouth is half-full of sawdust bread.
That's even worse. I know all the spoilers for socialism. He'll start to say something about how neat it is what Rosa Luxemburg is doing and I'll have to while choking down my sawdust bread with a glass of river water.
Dangerous dangerous territory. If you make fun of someone else's intelligence in the company of the person synonymous with genius, you now have to prove that you wouldn't submit a dumb patent. You have to come up with a really good idea on the spot KNOWING that Einstein can think of much better ideas with ease. Maybe your best patent idea will be the dumbest patent idea he has ever encountered.
I wonder how much a single person from today with moderate technological knowledge could change history.
Like, I can't build a generator or cpu, but I have some knowledge of electricity and logic gates and what modern technology is capable of. Especially if I work with someone properly smart but too early, like Newton (a little past medieval but still). He could probably turn my moderate knowledge into something useful.
You can't just tell Einstein fart jokes the entire dinner. I'd run out of other kinds of jokes within 30 minutes and have to show him memes on my phone.
i'd commiserate with him over how annoying it is to do calculus on manifolds. took him like 10 years to learn it and figure out how to correctly develop GR with it.
"Hey, Al, you look like a king with that drip. Let's go to the bar and meet some girls. Also, is it just me or does capitalism fucking suck? I think we need socialism or communism or something, personally, but, I don't know, I'm not a genius or anything. What do you think?"
Lifelong friendship with Albert Einstein achieved. Dudes rock.
i will make jokes about bratwurst being phallic, and he'd know about Freud too right? if he doesn't appreciate it, guess "i gave Einstein a wedgie" is almost as good
i'm too autistic to eat face to face with other people most of the time, but if i had the chance i would ask einstein about philosophy and religion and stuff like that. i'm too stupid at math to know enough about physics to talk about it in any detail with someone like einstein, but talking about the philosophical ramifications of the weirder side of physics or the philosophy of science or just epistemology or ontology in general would be interesting IMO.
My rule is that if I get to talk with someone famous I won't be talking about what they're famous for. Like, if I get to talk to Biden (and couldn't [removed by reddit] him) then I'd just talk about his and my dogs
Once I saw the lead singer of a smallish band at a Whole Foods. I asked him if he was the singer of that band, he said yes, and I ran out of things to say. We were in the sushi section and I didn't want to talk to him about grocery sushi. I think I just said "cool" and walked away. I could ask Einstein if he's that physics guy, say cool, and stay quiet the rest of the dinner.