Cover: The Year of Dr. Einstein

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is, to some extent, true, although work by Physicists Steven Weinberg of Harvard and Abdus Salam of London's Imperial College of Science and Technology suggests that Einstein's dream of a unified field theory may some day be realized. There is also a glimmer in the esoteric new work on such baffling mathematical concepts as "supergravity" and "twistors" of possibly achieving a union of Einstein's beloved relativity and the quanta that he so distrusted.

However that quest may turn out, the father of relativity remains a moving figure, a 20th century Newton who set physics aflame and left an intellectual legacy so rich and profound that its depth is still a source of amazement and discovery. Yet Einstein, for his part, never lost sight of the humanity that new knowledge should serve. Says Einstein's executor, Economist Otto Nathan: "Even if he had never done science at all, he would have been one of the memorable figures of the century." That may be the exaggeration of a loyal friend. But as a centennial assessment, it is, relatively speaking, not entirely off the mark.