Relative Lavender

How Einstein Conceived General Relativity

Michael Dine | Literary Hub | 10th February

Accessible explainer of how Einstein arrived at a new understanding of gravity, the basis of his theory of general relativity. His conceptual breakthrough came in 1907 with a thought-experiment borrowed from everyday life: He imagined an elevator-car in free fall, its cables cut, and deduced that observers inside the car would feel weightless. He called this "the happiest thought of my life" (2,900 words)

Lavender In A Drawer

Peter Hitchens | The Lamp | 11th February 2022

Proust was right about memory-pumps. Tastes and smells beat sights and sounds. "Music can evoke recollections, but only in a bludgeoning, sentimental way. Smell and taste go straight past years of forgetting to awake unwanted, unexpected things — lavender in a drawer, the thrilling scent of burning coal on chilly afternoons, wet raincoats, the slimy odor of the seashore at low tide" (1,300 words)

BROWSER CLASSIFIEDS:

Reach 60k+ smart, curious readers every day: Advertise in the Browser

Five Books: The Best Books For Learning French. There's no easy way to learn a language, but here are five books that will truly help with the long path to fluency.

Learning a language is hard. Joining The Browser is easy: