Diary details Einstein's last years In the last years of Albert Einstein's life, he amused himself by telling jokes to his parrot, and avoided visitors by feigning illness, according to a newly discovered diary written by the woman as his last girlfriend. While Einstein also talked about the travails of his continuing work in physics, most of Johanna Fantova's diary recalls his views on world politics and his personal life. "The writings are an unvarnished portrait of Einstein struggling bravely with the manifold inconveniences of sickness and old age," said Freeman Dyson, a mathematician at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. The 62-page diary, written in German, was discovered in February in Fantova's personnel files at Princeton University's Firestone Library, where she had worked as a curator. The manuscript is the subject of an article to be published next month in The Princeton University Library Journal. According to the article, the new manuscript is the only one kept by someone close to Einstein in the final years of his life. Fantova wrote that she recorded her time with the renowned physicist to "cast some additional light on our understanding of Einstein, not on the great man who became a legend in his lifetime, not on Einstein the renowned scientist, but on Einstein the humanitarian." Fantova was 22 years younger than Einstein. Although the two spent considerable time together starting in the 1940s, her journal only records their relationship from October 1953 until his death in April 1955 at age 76. She died in 1981 at age 80. The diary also recounts how, on his 75th birthday, Einstein received a parrot as gift. After deciding the bird was depressed, Einstein tried alter its mood by telling bad jokes. At times, Einstein would pretend to be sick in bed so he would not have to pose with visitors who wanted photographs. Einstein still enjoyed himself even when real illness did take hold. Einstein also wrote Fantova poems, some of which are in the diary. Einstein, with his second wife Elsa, had arrived in Princeton in 1933 at the newly formed Institute for Advanced Study. Elsa died three years later. Fantova first met Einstein in 1929 in Berlin. She arrived in the United States alone in 1939 and, at Einstein's urging, attended library school at the University of North Carolina. 愛因斯坦最後一位女友所寫的日記最近被發現，其中披露了愛因斯坦晚年的生活，他給鸚鵡講笑話來逗自己開心，還假裝生病閉門謝客。 儘管愛因斯坦也談論他長期從事物理研究工作的辛苦，在女友喬安娜·範多娃的日記中，大部分內容都是回憶愛因斯坦對於世界政治和個人生活的看法。 美國普林斯頓大學高級研究院的數學家福裏曼·戴森說：“這本日記真實地再現了愛因斯坦與疾病和年邁等諸多不便頑強抗爭的情景。” 2月，在普林斯頓大學火石圖書館中收藏的喬安娜·範多娃個人檔案中發現了這本長達62頁、用德語書寫的日記。喬安娜·範多娃曾擔任該圖書館的館長。在下月即將出版的《普林斯頓大學圖書館雜誌》中，有一篇文章的主題就是這篇手稿。
