What would Albert Einstein say about Immortalists?

Our Sun in the solar system has burned halfway through its lifespan. In five billion years from now, the Sun will become a red giant star that will engulf Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth. Migrating to Mars will delay human extinction until the Sun's core turns into a white dwarf. By then we will have to find an alternative source of energy to sustain life on Mars.

Since making plans for the next five billion years requires extremely long-term thinking, immortalists are futurists on steroids.

Albert Einstein certainly approved long-term thinking, especially since astrophysics was his cup of tea. He would have joined the immortalists if he had found a purpose to live indefinitely.

In 1955, Einstein suffered an abdominal aortic aneurysm at the age of 76. He was taken to the Princeton University Medical Center but he refused surgery, saying, “I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.”

Einstein had done his share in discovering the photoelectric effect that earned him a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, not to mention the famous E=mc2 equation in his theory of special relativity and space-time continuum in his theory of general relativity. Einstein spent the last 30 years of his life on a quest for a unified field theory to combine gravity and electromagnetism, but he did not succeed. Had Einstein determined to continue his quest and not give up, he would have accepted surgery and possibly lived much longer.

Three years prior to his death, Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952, but he turned it down, saying, “I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel, and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it.” Had Einstein accepted the Israeli cabinet’s offer, he would have had another good reason to live longer. With Einstein’s creativity and IQ to tackle the world’s toughest problems, the Middle East could have been very different today because of his commitment to pacifism.

Therefore, if immortalists were to travel back in time to meet Albert Einstein in 1952, they would say to him, “Look, Einstein! Unified field theory or a theory of everything is still eluding our brightest scientists in the year 2020. We really need your help to figure it all out. And there’s one more thing: If you accept the challenge as the president of Israel, you will probably save many innocent lives by reducing armed conflicts and preventing the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America.”

What would you say to Albert Einstein? (Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.)

This article also appeared in IM: Immortalists Magazine (Issue #1, January-February 2020, pp. 42-43).