Albert Einstein, born in the City of Ulm in Germany in 1879, was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics, in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1921. When he died in 1955, at Princeton in the United States of America, the Physics Department of the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa, extended an invitation to Richard Phillips Feynman to present an hour-long paper about Albert Einstein.

Feynman accepted the invitation on the condition that in the question-time after his presentation, he answered only one question of his choice out of twenty submitted anonymously in writing to the University before he arrived.

Richard Phillips Feynman, born in the City of New York in the United States of America in 1918, was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics, in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1965.

He was well known in South Africa because, first, in the United States of America he was one of the many Physicists who had worked in the Federal Government’s Manhattan Project.

That Project produced the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in August 1945.

Second, Richard Phillips Feynman had been involved in the establishment of the nuclear research centre on a farm situated a few miles outside the City of Pretoria which was the capital of South Africa. The name of that nuclear research station was Pelindaba.

While it was no secret that the plan to establish Pelindaba had originated in the United States of America, and that its entire construction from start to finish had been supervised by American scientists, the names of the American nuclear scientists employed at Pelindaba have never been made public.

The continuing mystery was why Feynman’s frequent visits to Pelindaba over the years have never been secret. Indeed, during his presentation at the University of Natal, Feynman mentioned his intention to “stop by” Pelindaba on his way home.

From the beginning, it was an open secret among South Africans that the main purpose, if not the only purpose of Pelindaba was to provide Israel with an atomic bomb.

Pelindaba was the only nuclear research facility on the continent of Africa. Its construction began in 1961; the original plan was to produce its first atomic bomb by 1966. None of the nuclear scientists at Pelindaba was of South African birth.

The American proposal for the construction of Pelindaba was instantly and unconditionally accepted by the South African Government which was the Whites-only apartheid-racist Government that had taken over from the apartheid-racist British Empire Government in 1948.

The venue for Feynman’s presentation at the University at Natal was the University’s Howard College lecture hall. It was the University’s largest lecture hall serving the University’s three campuses spread across two Cities. All the University’s graduation ceremonies were conducted in Howard College.

For Feynman’s presentation the auditorium was fully occupied; over five hundred persons seated. Against fire regulations for the first time ever, standing in the aisles and sitting on the steps were allowed!

I was among those sitting on the steps. I was an undergraduate. As yet, I had no science course credits. I did not expect to understand any of Feynman’s content. I was there, passionately, because Richard Phillips Feynman would be the first American scholar I had the opportunity to see and listen to alive, a few feet away in front of me!

Up to that Howard College opportunity, I had seen and heard American spoken on television, only. Even when I paid the fullest attention, I had difficulty understanding the American accent! I was hoping seeing-hearing alive would significantly help me understand Feynman’s ‘funny’ American accent.

From his very first sentence, Richard Phillips Feynman was a most entertaining speaker. He had no notes. He spent the first few moments moving the podium out of its central location. Throughout his presentation he walked about. He gestured a lot, as if he were a professional onstage Actor! And his American accent? What accent?

He claimed, in seeming humorous vein, to be the only person who understood most of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. He said he was sad he wouldn’t be able to find out if Einstein understood is as well as he, Feynman, did.

He declared, most emphatically, that nobody, himself included, could ever fully comprehend Max Planck’s Quantum Theory.

Feynman said he had met Einstein for the first time at Princeton University in the U.S.A. at a Conference where Feynman was presenting a paper. Because of Einstein’s presence in the audience, Feynman was so nervous that he was finding it difficult to hold the chalk sticks steady with which he was writing on the blackboard.

At question time when some world-renowned scientists were mercilessly challenging Feynman’s claim that was as yet without adequate supporting practical calculations, Einstein came to his rescue by observing Feynman’s claim was in itself, so far, plausible by known calculations provided by other scientists in related matters, and that more specific practical applications were needed to prove or disprove Feynman’s claim.

Feynman said that although he never met Einstein again, he forever felt indebted to Einstein for his support at that Princeton Conference.

Of the twenty questions submitted, the one Feynman chose to answer was, “Since in Albert Einstein’s famous equation, e=mc², c² is impossible to generate in laboratories, does not the entire equation amount to a hoax?”

His answer stunned the audience: “It does.” He paused a few seconds, his demeanor onstage clearly appearing to be deliberately savoring the silence of the audience-in-disbelief.

Softly and slowly he added that such well-intentioned science “hoaxes” were inevadable occasionally in Physics because it is in the nature of mathematics to confuse and confound itself into sixes-and-sevens, now-and-then.

He cited three other current science “hoaxes” in Physics, similar to Einstein’s famous equation.

The one is, Unified Field Theory, of which Einstein himself was the originator in the 1920s. It is a quest for a single mathematical equation that explains the interactions of the fundamental forces in Nature already intricately related; forces such as electricity, gravity, light, magnetism. Feynman pointed out that Einstein failed to resolve the UFT hoax which he himself, single-handedly, had originated!

And here in 2026, seventy-one years after Albert Einstein left us forever, his UFT hoax is yet a hoax!

Another “hoax” of Einstein’s own single-handed making was his “ Cosmological component” which he arbitrarily invented to help him solve equations in 1917. The Cosmological component’s success proved to be so unreliable that Einstein eventually abandoned it in1998, confessing it to have been his “biggest blunder.”

Richard Phillips Feynman’s Howard College presentation was a complete success. He promised to return, if invited. The worsening of the Political climate in South Africa prevented that second invitation from happening.

The success of Nelson Mandela’s Political campaign to overthrow the Whites-only apartheid-racist Government of South Africa, led the Government of the United States of America to abort the progress of atomic bomb production at Pelindaba, in 1990.

The other is, String Theory, after Einstein’s time.

By the way, both Unified Field Theory, and String Theory, continue to remain, in 2026, well-intentioned science “hoaxes” in Physics mathematics! Unavoidably!