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“The oddest thing about the Universe is that we can know it.” —Albert Einstein Forget the feverish calculations, the equations long as boxcars, the untied shoelaces, the startled shocks of snow white hair. Picture instead the child-Einstein on his sickbed twirling a dime store compass, dazzled by an unseen order— the needle always pointing north held in place by unseen fingers. And over there, it’s Isaac Newton rubbing the lump on his forehead like Aladdin’s lamp contemplating the fall of an apple, which couldn’t have landed on a more perspicacious scalp than his. That’s Darwin in his study, magnifying glass