(HOST) News reports about the most recent group of Nobel prize winners has reminded commentator Edith Hunter of a book about a past recipient - and the influence his work continues to have today.

(HUNTER) Recently I read the biography of Albert Einstein by Walter Isaacson. As I closed the massive book, it is 500+ pages, I felt as if I were saying good bye to an admired friend.

Although I took a lot of physics and chemistry in college, I rather skimmed over such chapters as: "General Relativity", "Unified Field Theories", and "Quantum Entanglement, 1935." I read, with more understanding, the chapters on "Divorce", "Fame", "Nobel Laureate", "America", and "One-Worlder."

Einstein found it difficult to get an academic job, and finally, in 1902, settled for a job in the Patent Office. He was twice married, had a daughter by his first wife before they married, and after marriage, two sons. Einstein was not a very admirable father or husband. But he had many warm friends in the scientific community.

He was consumed with curiosity about the nature of ultimate reality. He always said that his curiosity was awakened originally when he was only five years old by the gift of a compass. He wondered what hidden forces were at work behind the movement of the compass needle.

One chapter is titled, "The Miracle Year: Quanta and Molecules, 1905", the year in which he published four papers. The fourth paper was an early presentation of his theory of relativity. Over the next few years those papers would make Einstein world famous and win him a Nobel prize in physics.

Isaacson writes about Einstein's trip across the Atlantic in the company of Chaim Weizmann, at the time president of the World Zionist organization. Isaacson wrote: "Einstein tried to explain relativity to Weizmann. Asked upon their arrival whether he understood the theory, Weizmann gave a delightful reply: 'During the crossing Einstein explained his theory to me every day, and by the time we arrived I was fully convinced that he really understands it.'"

Einstein was opposed to the concentration of wealth, and he came to believe that only internationalism could save the world from wars which would only become more and more barbaric. The third world war, he said, would be fought with nuclear bombs, and the fourth with stones. He once said: "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the beautiful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and doings of mankind."

Writer and historian Edith Hunter lives in Weathersfield Center.