[EDNote: On Nabokov's physics, see also Robert Grossmith, "Shaking the
Kaleidoscope: Physics and
Metaphysics in Nabokov's Bend Sinister". Russian Literature
TriQuarterly (Ann Arbor, MI), 24, 1991, pp. 151-162.
My article "The Poetics of Science in, and around, Nabokov's The
Gift", The Russian Review, Russian Review. 62 (2003):
243-61, touches briefly on Einstein's role in that novel. See also
several lengthy discussions in Marina Grishakova's The
Models of Space, Time and Vision in V. Nabokov’s
Fiction: Narrative Strategies and Cultural Frames. Tartu: Tartu
UP, 2006. I
also have some forthcoming work on this topic. ~SB]
-------- Original Message --------
All right I went and looked up this Langevin you spoke: a French
physicist most famous for his use of ultra-sound and for popularizing
Einstein's ideas about the Theory of Relativity. So...
Speak Memory, Interview No 9, pg. 116 Nabokov says: "While not having
much physics, I reject Einstein's slick formulas; but then one need not
know theology to be an atheist."