E = MC Escher

Albert Einstein’s colleagues at the Institute of Advance Study were worried that he was drinking
again. Without a word of warning to anyone, he had shaved off his spectacular mane of wild
white hair. Now he was openly talking about getting a tattoo of e=mc2 on his neck. In addition,
he had started bringing his pet raven Poe to the office. No one knew then that, pressured by
federal law enforcement, he was wearing a wire to faculty meetings. While one or another of
the faculty bloviated, he would sit there listening with foreboding to something only he could
hear—the ticking of the universe’s cooling engine.