EDITOR’S NOTE: Permission to be Powerful is growing fast. In that spirit, many writers came together to show their support. I’m immensely grateful. I’ll share a new piece every day for the next few days.
Now, let’s get into it…
Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,
I know what you’re thinking.
Einstein’s brain? Really?
This can’t possibly be worth writing about — unless you’re a conspiracy theorist, a mad scientist, or someone who just crushed three Red Bulls at 2 a.m. while Googling “weird stuff that happened to famous dead people.”
But here’s the thing:
It’s all true.
Every last unhinged detail of it.
This story has been covered in books, articles, and documentaries.
I’m not making this up to win Weirdest Google Search Bingo.
Buckle up — because we’re going from Princeton to Kansas, to Canada, to the inside of a beer cooler.
Yes, Einstein’s brain once chilled next to a six-pack of Coors Light.
It Starts with a Death
Einstein dies in 1955. You’d think his brain would be respectfully cremated, or at least archived with scientific dignity.
Wrong.
Enter Thomas Harvey — the pathologist who performed Einstein’s autopsy.
Harvey takes one look at that Nobel Prize-winning noggin and thinks:
“You know what? I’m just gonna keep this.”
He steals the brain.
No permission. No scientific clearance. Just cuts it into 240 pieces and stores them in jars. Like pickles.
Einstein pickles.
“Yeah, I’mma take this with me.”
And he did.
Harvey kept pieces of Einstein’s brain in his basement. For decades.
Later, he stored it in a box marked Costa Cider beneath a beer cooler in his office. You know — just in case someone wanted to drop by and do unauthorized neuroscience.
Then Came the Road Trip
Harvey, now older (and still hoarding brain bits), decides to drive across the country — hand-delivering Einstein’s brain to various researchers.
Yes. Like some deranged DoorDash for dismembered brilliance.
At one point, he even mailed slivers of Einstein’s brain through the U.S. Postal Service.
No dry ice. No special handling. Just brain fragments in envelopes, probably nestled between a Bed Bath & Beyond coupon and someone’s electric bill.
“Let me know what you find,” he’d say.
Like he was lending out a library book — not a Nobel-caliber cortex.
Detour to Wichita (Because of Course)
Einstein’s brain makes an unplanned stop in Kansas while Harvey visits his ex-wife.
Just imagine the scene:
“Hi. I brought the kids. And also… Einstein’s brain. It’s in the car. Wanna check it out?”
Yes. The brain made it to Canada, too.
Because no legendary scientific artifact is complete without an international getaway.
Apparently, Harvey crossed the border with Einstein’s brain in tow.
No questions asked.
Which raises just one question:
What did customs think was in the Tupperware?
“Shrunken Einstein Slice, Anyone?”
At academic conferences, Harvey handed out samples of the brain like cocktail hors d’oeuvres.
One of the recipients was Marian Diamond, a pioneering neuroscientist who studied Einstein’s parietal lobe in the 1980s.
Her findings? Einstein had more glial cells than average — the unsung assistants that keep the brain running.
Basically, he had a Fortune 500 support staff inside his skull.
Eventually… It All Caught Up With Him
Journalists caught wind. Scientists started asking questions.
And somewhere between the sliced cerebrum and the beer cooler, it became clear:
“Hey… is that legal?”
(It was not.)
Eventually, the dissected brain was returned to Einstein’s heirs — who donated it to the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia.
Where else do you put a brain that rewrote the laws of the universe?
Einstein’s mind once stretched across time and space.
Now it rests in a glass case, still making people think.
Just with fewer equations.
And a lot more staring.
So the next time you’re doom-scrolling, stuck in traffic, or contemplating the mysteries of the universe, remember this:
Somewhere in the archives of real life, a man once opened his fridge…and saw Einstein’s brain next to a sandwich.
And that, my friends, is why I write fiction.
Because reality?
Reality is just showing off.
— Rick
 | A guest post by
|