Is the photo of Einstein with an electric guitar real?

For many years, a photo of the famous physicist has been circulating on the Internet, in which he is depicted with a guitar in his hands. We checked to see if this is a real photo.

The photo went viral not only on Russian-language entertainment sites (“Useful notes", "Personalities"), but also ended up in the online version biographical book Vitaly Vulf about Einstein. It has become especially widespread in social networks: for example, on Facebook there are publications with 240 And 49 reposts at the time of writing this analysis. This photo is also popular on foreign language sites.

Albert Einstein is known throughout the world as a great physicist, but he himself, according to biographers, confessedthat if it weren’t for his career as a scientist, he would have become a musician. The main guide to the world of music for Einstein was the violin, with which he met at the age of six and from then on did not leave until the end of his life. “Life without playing music is unthinkable for me,” said the Nobel Prize winner, whose favorite composers were Mozart and Bach. Einstein often played at chamber concerts of classical music, and exists a lot photos, in which he is captured with his favorite instrument. In 2018, one of his violins left auctioned for $516,000. In addition, when thinking about a scientific idea, Einstein sometimes played piano.

The famous scientist died in 1955 in the USA, where by that time he had already flourished electric blues and was approaching the peak of popularity rock and roll - two genres of popular music in the development of which the spread of the electric guitar played a crucial role. However, not a single reputable biographical publication reports that the great physicist ever had a passion for popular music. On the contrary, according to memories playwright Jerome Weidman, Einstein once proved to his acquaintance the genius of Bach by contrast, playing on the record player, one after another, pop recordings of recent years, which seemed primitive to him. Also, “Verified” did not find any evidence that Albert Einstein ever picked up a guitar, especially an electric one.

If you pay attention to the instrument captured in the photo, you will notice the logo:

Before us are the company's products Peavey, founded in 1965, and specifically the model Razer, which entered the market in August 1983. Of course, Einstein could not hold this guitar in his hands; it appeared after his death. And in general, how note specialized publications, the model did not become popular among performers and amateurs. One of the few famous musicians who played such a guitar was the American bluesman James Lewis Carter Ford, known under the pseudonym T-Model Ford. He loved his instrument very much, called his "Black Nanny" and glued on the body of the guitar are the letters The Tale Dragger (a distorted Taildragger is another nickname Ford).

A similar inscription adorns the photo with supposedly Einstein, and the original photo can be found on many websites dedicated to the blues, as well as in the publication’s article The Telegraph. As you can see from comparing the two photos, someone used a graphics editor to add an image of Einstein's head to the original photo of Ford.

Einstein's head in the edited photograph was taken from a mirrored photos 1930s. According to the Tineye service, a collage is spreading across the Internet started no later than summer 2009. Of course, users who shared the photo often didn't hide humorous orientation of the publication, however, many readers took the photograph seriously, as evidenced by cases of its use in feature articles, and sometimes attempts to challenge the authenticity of the photograph.

Cover photo: social networks

Fake

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