Sherlock Holmes & Albert Einstein
We know Albert Einstein for his singular intelligence and sense of humour. Once a reporter was astonished at his declaration he didn't know his telephone number. He replied very seriously that his brain was too precious to be keeped busy in remember numbers he could write in his notebook, and that only a fool could obstruct his brain with totally not necessary data.
For an Holmesian student it is nothing but a quotation from the famous Master's aphorism:
"You see. I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." (STUD)
Is this only a coincidence, or we can conclude Einstein consciously quoted Sherlock Holmes ? The answer is in the introduction that Einstein wrote for his book THE EVOLUTION OF PHYSICS (A. Einstein and I. Infeld, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1938). In it the author compare the scientists to the readers of a good detective story, looking for the solutions of the misteries of the book of nature. Then he writes:
"As from the admirable Conan Doyle's stories, in almost all thriller stories comes the time in which the Detective collected all the clues he needs to arrive almost at a certain point on the way of the solution. These facts appear often strange, incoherent and without any connection between them. In spite of this, the acute Detective realizes that for the moment the best is not to continue the investigation and that only the pure reflection can estabilsh a connection between the verified facts. So he begins to play his violin, or he sinks in to his armchair, smoking the pipe, and -miracle !- he suddenly finds out the connection. Rather, not only he finds out a relation between the clues he already knows, but he realizes that some other not yet ascertained events must be happened. For he now sees clearly where he must find, he can, if he likes, go to collect further confirmations of his theory." (1)
No doubt the great Einstein appreciated Watson's stories to the point he quoted thr brain-attic theory of Sherlock Holmes.
(1) These are not the exact words of Einstein. It is our translation from italian of his paragraph