“Sure enough, here they come. Einstein has on his usual costume - sweatshirt, baggy pants, sandals. They stop, and Ernts [Strauss, Einstein’s assistant] asks him if he would mind meeting some physics graduate students. ‘No, it will be pleasure,’ says Einstein.
We stand and he asks Martin, ‘What are you working on?’
‘Quantum theory,’ says Martin.
‘Ach! A waste of time!’
Einstein then turns to me, and I hasten to say that I am doing experimental research on the properties of pions.
[Physics mumbo jumbo removed]
Einstein nods, then shakes his head and says something to the effect that it is already impossible to explain the existence of the electron, so why spend so much effort on these newer particles?
He bids us a cheery goodbye, having crushed us both in about thirty seconds. However, we were way up in the clouds. We had met and talked physics with Einstein!”
— Leon M. Lederman, “Einstein, Moe, and Joe” from the essay collection My Einstein
