ARTHUR I. MILLER

Department of Science & Technology Studies

University College London

Gower Street

London WC1E 6BT

The most important scientist of the twentieth century, and its most important artist, went through their periods of greatest creativity almost simultaneously and in remarkably similar circumstances. I will focus on their greatest breakthroughs: Einstein's special theory of relativity and Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. When they produced these astonishing works, Einstein and Picasso were not the distinguished elderly figures that later became so familiar: they were in their twenties, unknown, feisty, dirt-poor, and prone to getting into trouble - their personal and creative beauty caused havoc.

They both responded to the tidal wave of the avant-garde. For Picasso this included the newly invented medium of moving pictures, photography, and cutting-edge science and philosophy. Einstein immersed himself in such key technological problems as the design of electric dynamos and the co-ordination of train schedules.

Behind the many similarities in their lives and circumstances, and in what they had to endure in order to produce such masterpieces, lies a greater, unifying point. Einstein and Picasso both came of age at the exact moment in history when it was first becoming apparent that classical, intuitive ways of understanding space and time are not adequate. They were both working on the same problem: the nature of space and time and, more particularly, simultaneity.