Einstein Explains His Famous Formula, E=mc², in Original Audio (Plus More Cultural Curiosities)

Last week we played for you the only known record­ing of Sig­mund Freud’s voice (1938). Now it’s time to revive the voice of anoth­er intel­lec­tu­al giant, Albert Ein­stein. In this record­ing, the physi­cist offers the briefest expla­na­tion of the world’s most famous equa­tion, E=mc2. When was this record­ed? We’re unfor­tu­nate­ly not sure. Let’s just say some­where between 1932 (a date Ein­stein men­tions in the clip) and his death in 1955. Some­where in those 20+ years, give or take a few. Don’t miss the recent­ly-opened Ein­stein archive and many free Physics cours­es in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es from top uni­ver­si­ties.

Now it’s time for more good cul­ture links, all pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured on our Twit­ter stream.

BBC Radio 4 Pro­file of William S. Bur­roughs Nar­rat­ed by Lau­rie Ander­son (2008)

The New York­er Wants You to Write a Face­book Sta­tus Update for any Lit­er­ary Char­ac­ter

The Inequal­i­ty Speech That TED Won’t Show You and Why

New York­er Cov­ers That Were Too Provoca­tive to Print

Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty’s Lec­tures on Great Writ­ers and Why They Inspire (on iTunes)

Ancient Lan­guage Dis­cov­ered on Clay Tablets Found in 2800 Year Old Mid­dle East­ern Palace

Graph­ing Jane Austen: Using Sci­ence to Extrap­o­late the Human Con­di­tion from Vic­to­ri­an Lit­er­a­ture

Roald Hoff­mann, Nobel Prize Win­ning Chemist, Recounts His Mov­ing Sto­ry of Hid­ing from the Nazis

Janis Joplin’s Last Inter­view on The Dick Cavett Show

Time to Get Ill: Beast­ie Boys Lyrics in the Oxford Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary

Picas­so’s Light Draw­ings: Still Shin­ing from 1949

Alban­ian Refugee Works as Jan­i­tor by Day, Stu­dent by Night, Earns Colum­bia Degree with Hon­ors at 52

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus or Email, and we’ll bring the best intel­li­gent media right to you.