THE KING IS DEAD

________________________________________________

The king is dead. Long live the king!

__________________________________________________________________________

There is the Einstein who grew up, worked and died, but there is also the Einstein who became the public face of science. Robert P Crease explains the difference.

In his classic work The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology the historian Ernst Kantorowicz examined the development of the political doctrine that distinguished between a monarch's natural body and his or her political body. Whereas the monarch’s natural body is mortal – it lives, breathes, becomes ill and dies – the political body,which is the embodiment and representative of the state, is immortal. Yet somehow the two bodies comprise a single unit in making appointments, conducting wars and signing treaties. The paradox is encapsulated in the expression, "The king is dead. Long live the king!". Einstein has such a great and enduring cultural visibility that it is tempting to try to understand him in similar terms.