Nevada Appeal at 150: April 18, 1955: Einstein dies in Eastern hospital

Einstein dies in Eastern hospital

Princeton, N.J., April 18 — Dr. Albert Einstein, 76, one of the greatest physicists of all time, died today at a Princeton hospital of a ruptured aorta, the main artery of the body.

The frail little cosmic genius, whose theory of relativity unlocked the door to the atomic age, died quietly at 1:15 a.m.

Einstein entered the hospital secretly last Friday for treatment of a gall bladder inflammation. His condition was not considered serious.

“Death came suddenly,” a spokesman said. “He was conscious to the end.”

The scientist’s body was cremated later in the day after all major organs, including the brain, had been removed for medical research and study.

Einstein’s death set the world of science and education into deep mourning. Dr. Harold W. Dodds, president of Princeton University, described Einstein’s contribution to man’s understanding of nature as “beyond assessment in our day.”

On his 75th birthday last year, Einstein was hailed in London as the man “who has done more than anyone in this century to change the perspective of science itself.”

It was in 1939 when the rumpled little man with the shock of unkempt white hair put President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the track of the atomic bomb. Einstein said it could be built, but he firmly believed it should be held as a threat to dictators and not dropped on enemy cities.

Later, after the wartime disasters at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Einstein brooded. He said the unleashing of the atom “has changed everything except our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

This continues the Appeal’s review of news stories and headlines during its Sesquicentennial year.