Albert Einstein is perhaps the world's greatest scientist. The Nobel Prize winner, who solved the riddle¹ of the photoelectric² effect and proposed the general theory of relativity, died on April 18, 1955, aged 76 after laying the foundation of modern physics and changing mankind's views on space, time, mass, and energy. But did you know he was obsessed³ by fried eggs? That's one of 10 quirky things about the man behind the famous equation E = mc 2 that we learn from the book Einstein at Home, which will be published in English in May 2016 for the first time. The book contains five interviews conducted by scientist Friedrich Herneck with Herta Waldow, née Schiefelbein, who was the live-in housekeeper⁴ of Einstein in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district of Berlin for six years.

阿尔伯特•爱因斯坦可能是世界上最伟大的科学家。他是诺贝尔奖得主，破解了光电效应的谜题，提出了广义相对论，奠定了现代物理学的基础，改变了人类对空间、时间、质量和能量的认识。他于1955年4月18日逝世，享年76岁。但是，你知道他对煎蛋非常痴迷吗？我们也是从《爱因斯坦的家庭生活》这本书知道的。这个提出著名等式E = mc 2的科学家有10个癖好，都收录在这本书中。此书的英文版将于2016年5月第一次出版。书中还收录了科学家弗里德里希•赫尔内克对赫塔•沃尔多（娘家姓席费尔拜因）女士的五次采访，沃尔多女士曾经在爱因斯坦位于柏林夏洛滕堡-威尔默斯多夫区的家中当了六年的住家管家。

下面，我们就来看看这本书中揭秘的爱因斯坦的那些“怪癖”。

The mad hair came on the cheap

凌乱的头发是省钱省出来的

Einstein's second wife was his cousin Elsa Loewenthal. Elsa could not persuade Einstein to pay for a barber so she would cut his hair herself. Waldow recalled: "When his hair was too long, when it was beyond the pale, Elsa would cut off his hair with scissors and he was willing to put up with it. As well as his disheveled hair, Elsa also trimmed the great scientist's moustache.

爱因斯坦的第二任妻子是他的堂姐艾尔莎•洛文塔尔。艾尔莎没法劝服爱因斯坦，让他花钱找理发师理发，只能自己给他剪。沃尔多回忆说：“当他的头发长得太长，长得让人无法忍受时，艾尔莎就会拿剪子给他剪头发，他也愿意让她这么剪。除了修剪凌乱的头发，艾尔莎还会给这个大科学家刮胡子。

He made his shoes last

他的鞋寿命很长

Penny-pinching seems to have been a thing in the Einstein household - a seven-room apartment. Waldow, who was the housekeeper from 1927-1933, said that he was always short of cash and his wife was very penny pinching. He wore shoes with holes in them, even if they were no longer watertight. "He would wear them until it was no longer possible." She said his favourite footwear was sandals. No wonder he kept a sign up in his office in later life in Princeton that said: "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

爱因斯坦住的公寓有七间屋子，节俭似乎是他家的主题。沃尔多在1927-1933年间在这里当管家，她说爱因斯坦手头总是很紧，他的妻子也非常节俭。他的鞋有破洞了，甚至都不防水了，他还在穿。“他要把它们穿到实在穿不了了为止。”她说他最喜欢穿的鞋就是凉鞋。怪不得他晚年在普林斯顿大学的办公室里挂着一句话：“不是所有有价值的都可以被计算，不是所有能计算的都有价值。”

He really was an egghead (especially fried eggs )

他真是鸡蛋（特别是炒鸡蛋）爱好者

Waldow had to deliver fried eggs and scrambled⁵ eggs almost every day for his breakfast. There were eggs for breakfast, usually fried. There was also a lot of honey, which we bought by the pail, brought by a beekeeper. "Herr Professor always ate fried eggs, at least two." They bought their fresh eggs from an elderly Jewish man. "Dear me, he was so grubby!" Waldow said. Einstein also enjoyed mushrooms with his eggs. "He would probably have eaten mushrooms three times a day, that's how fond he was of them."

沃尔多几乎每天都给他送煎蛋和炒蛋当早餐。早餐的鸡蛋通常是煎的，里面还加了很多蜂蜜。蜂蜜是从一个养蜂人那里一桶一桶买来的。“教授先生总是吃煎蛋，一次至少吃两个。”他们的鲜鸡蛋是从一个老犹太人那里买的。“天呐，那个卖蜂蜜的可邋遢了！”沃尔多说，爱因斯坦还喜欢在鸡蛋里加蘑菇。“他几乎一天吃三顿蘑菇，他就是这么喜欢。”

But he didn't want to eat 'bloody⁶' steak

但他不吃“带血的”牛排

He would only eat steak if it was very well done. He would always say: "I am not a tiger". Einstein didn't like having his private remarks published and later wrote, "it never occurred to me that every casual remark of mine would be snatched up and recorded. Otherwise I would have crept further into my shell."

牛排只有烤得非常熟他才会吃。他总是说：“我又不是老虎。”爱因斯坦不喜欢他的个人言论被出版，后来他写道：“我从来没想过我每句不经意的言论都会被捕捉并记录下来。否则的话，我就会爬进壳里安静地待着了。”

And he hated English cooking

他讨厌英式烹饪

Einstein visited England in 1933 but wasn't much impressed with our cuisine⁷, saying of English cooking, "it's ghastly, they cook everything with mutton fat". But give him a strawberry and he was content. Einstein was "passionately⁸ fond of strawberries" - he liked a strawberry dish served with whipped cream, together with what he called "strawberry snow".

爱因斯坦1933年到访过英国，但却对那里的食物不怎么感兴趣，他说英式烹饪“可怕，所有的食物都是羊脂油做的”。但是给他一个草莓他就会很开心。爱因斯坦“狂热地喜欢草莓”，他还喜欢草莓上加生奶油，他管这道菜叫“草莓积雪”。

He hardly drank alcohol

他不怎么喝酒

Einstein only drank caffeine-free coffee called Kaffee Haag and black tea. The inveterate⁹ pipe smoker didn't drink much alcohol but like celery punch. Just imagine, celery punch!

爱因斯坦只喝一种叫做Kaffee Haag的脱咖啡因咖啡和红茶。老烟枪爱因斯坦不怎么喝酒，但喜欢喝芹菜汁。你能想象得到吗？芹菜汁！

He had a toy telescope on his desk

他桌上有架小望远镜

Waldow recalled that next to his desk Einstein kept a telescope for observing the stars. "It was a kind of school telescope mounted on a tripod," she said.

沃尔多回忆，爱因斯坦在桌子旁边放了架望远镜，用来看星星。“那是一个学生用的望远镜，架在三脚架上，”她说。

He loved playing the violin – but was terrible

他喜欢拉小提琴——但是拉得不好

Einstein liked to play the violin at night. He did not play pieces of music but "his own improvisations as he did his thinking to them". He played in the kitchen because he liked the way the tiles made the music resonate. Alas, he wasn't that good. Fellow scientist Professor Walter Frierich said of Einstein's playing that he "bowed like a lumberjack".

爱因斯坦喜欢在晚上拉小提琴。他不拉奏音乐作品，而是“他自己的即兴创作，想到什么拉什么”。他在厨房里拉小提琴，因为他喜欢墙砖与音乐共鸣的声音。可是啊，他拉得并不好。科学家沃尔特•弗瑞尔里希说爱因斯坦的演奏就像“伐木工人在锯树”。

Einstein was not a party animal

爱因斯坦不喜欢派对

He hated attending social events and "he often railed against it very angrily". He did sometimes have dinner parties and special nights in with stars such as Charlie Chaplin.

他讨厌参加社交活动，并且会“经常非常生气地抱怨”。不过他确实参加过几次宴会，与查理•卓别林等明星度过了几个特别的夜晚。

He liked to wander round starkers

他喜欢光着身子游荡

"Herr professor just liked to look at beautiful women, he always had a weakness for lovely ladies," said Waldow. The woman he called Fraulein Herta was 21 when she first started working for the 48-year-old Einstein. Waldow remembered that she blushed when she saw him naked. "It was very embarrassing for me. Either Herr Professor had not bothered putting on his bathrobe, or he was too lost in thought to remember wearing it". Ah, the old absent-minded professor excuse.

沃尔多说：“教授先生喜欢看漂亮的女人，对她们总是没有抵抗力。”爱因斯坦48岁时雇佣了一个21岁的叫做赫塔的姑娘。沃尔多回忆称，当她看到爱因斯坦没穿衣服的时候脸都红了。“我那时很尴尬，教授先生要么是懒得穿浴袍，要么是沉迷于思考忘了穿。”啊哈，什么年纪大了心不在焉，都是借口。