Brains on trains: Israeli scholars deliver moving lectures (Feature)

By Jeff Abramowitz Nov 4, 2009, 14:20 GMT

Tel Aviv - University professors are used to having their lectures interrupted, but being disturbed by a railway announcement, or by a train conductor demanding tickets, is a new experience.

Professor Hanoch Gutfreund, however, was unfazed, barely pausing in his talk on the love letters of Albert Einstein to a carriage of curious commuters.

The former president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was inaugurating a joint project by Israel Railways and the university - a series of free lectures given on board Israeli trains.

The project, 'Scientists on the Trains,' kicked off Wednesday morning on the route between the central Israeli city of Modi'in and Tel Aviv.

'This is a new experience for me,' Gutfreund said. 'Unusual too, in that half my audience has its back to me.'

Standing at one end of the carriage, one hand holding a sheaf of notes he seldom referred to, the other grasping the back of a seat, Gutfreund launched into his lecture as the train slowly pulled out of Tel Aviv's Central Station on its 35-minute journey.

Einstein, he said, was a suitable choice for a railway lecture, since he used the example of trains to explain some of the concepts of his Theory of Relativity.

The legendary physicist was also a fitting topic for a series of lectures organized by Hebrew University, as he was one of its founders in 1925 and his letters are included in papers he bequeathed to it. He also bequeathed the university the royalties from the use of his image.

Gutfreund's audience listened attentively as he discussed the letters Einstein had sent to Mileva Maric, his fellow student whom he married in 1903, and to Elsa Lowenthal, who became his second wife in 1919.

'The love letters of Albert Einstein show us the emotional and intellectual development of one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, perhaps of all time,' Gutfreund said.

There were no questions when he finished talking, but the audience was nonetheless highly appreciative.

Rina Levy, a well-dressed 72-year-old, explained that she caught the Modi'in train especially to hear the lecture.

'I really enjoyed it,' she said. 'I attend university lectures a lot, but this was really different. I shall come again, and bring lots of people.'

'We want to bring the university to the public at large,' Hebrew University Spokeswoman Orit Sulitzeanu said.

Another aim of the project, she explained, 'is to combat the decline in higher education in Israel.'

More lectures are planned for the weeks ahead, she said, on topics such as the secrets of the brain and the creation of the world.

'Who needs to pay university tuition fees?' one passenger asked Wednesday. 'Just buy a train ticket.'