“When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity.”

An explanation of relativity which he gave to his secretary Helen Dukas to convey to non-scientists and reporters, as quoted in Best Quotes of &#x27;54, &#x27;55, l56 (1957) by James B. Simpson; also in Expandable Quotable Einstein (2005) edited by Alice Calaprice<br><br>William Hermanns recorded a series of four conversations he had with Einstein and published them in his book Einstein and the Poet (1983), quoting Einstein saying this variant in a 1948 conversation: &quot;To simplify the concept of relativity, I always use the following example: if you sit with a girl on a garden bench and the moon is shining, then for you the hour will be a minute. However, if you sit on a hot stove, the minute will be an hour.&quot; ( p. 87 http://books.google.com/books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&amp;lpg=PP1&amp;pg=PA87#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false)<br><br>In the 1985 book Einstein in America, Jamie Sayen wrote &quot;Einstein devised the following explanation for her [Helen Dukas] to give when asked to explain relativity: An hour sitting with a pretty girl on a park bench passes like a minute, but a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an hour.&quot; ( p. 130 http://books.google.com/books?ei=yma3TsDWK8WciQL63smAAQ&amp;ct=book-thumbnail&amp;id=vs3aAAAAMAAJ&amp;dq=sayen+%22einstein+in+america%22&amp;q=pretty+girl#search_anchor) <br class="br">Attributed in posthumous publications <br class="br">Variant: When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That&#x27;s relativity.