Was Einstein certain he was right before anyone could prove it?
Yes. Albert Einstein published general relativity in 1915, and when a solar eclipse expedition finally tested it in 1919, he told a student that if the results had gone the other way, he would have felt sorry for the Lord, because the theory was correct. In this episode of Talking With Pets, his cat Chico explains the patent clerk who rewrote physics on his lunch breaks and never really stopped asking one question he first thought of at sixteen.
History remembers the famous. Their pets remember the person. On Talking With Pets, a brown tabby cat named Prince MoRee runs a most unusual practice: he contacts the pets of history's greatest figures and lets them tell what they really saw. This episode is part of the Older Kids tier, for families ready to go a little deeper: same show, same honesty, told up a band and never grown-up. Tonight, a thoughtful cat who spent years in a Princeton house where very important things were being worked out, occasionally to the wall.
This episode is fully scripted and has passed the Talking With Pets accuracy review. The recording is in production. The audio player and the full transcript will appear right here the day the episode goes live. Join the founding list below and we will write to you when it does.
From the episode
Roxie: Did he know? Before the eclipse. Before anyone confirmed it.
Chico: There's a story he told once. When the telegram arrived confirming the results, a student asked what he would have done if it had been wrong.
[Roxie waits.]
Prince MoRee: (from his journal, quietly) āI would have felt sorry for the Lord. The theory is correct.ā
Roxie: (a beat) He was that certain.
Chico: He was that certain. For four years before anyone could prove it, he was that certain.
What's true, what we filled in, what we imagined
Every episode of Talking With Pets is built in three honest layers. Here is how this one breaks down.
Documented in the historical record
In 1905, working as a patent examiner in Bern, Switzerland, at age twenty-six, Einstein published four papers: on the photoelectric effect, on Brownian motion, on special relativity, and the paper that led to E=mc squared. He won the 1921 Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect, not for relativity. In 1919, Arthur Eddington's eclipse expedition confirmed general relativity by photographing starlight bending around the sun, and Einstein's fame arrived worldwide within days; he answered many of the children's letters he received afterward. His thought experiment about riding alongside a beam of light, first imagined at age sixteen, led a decade later to special relativity. Einstein lived at 112 Mercer Street in Princeton from 1935 until his death in 1955, played violin, and wrote in a 1952 letter, "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious."
Grounded inference from the record
That Einstein played violin specifically when genuinely stuck on a problem, and that Chico could tell from the register of his voice when something had shifted, are grounded inferences from documented accounts of Einstein's relationship between music and his work. The Nobel committee's specific caution about relativity's novelty is a reasonable reading of the historical record.
Story, voice, and feeling
Chico's voice, the interview, and the account of what a cat can tell from a voice are imagined. A cat cannot really be reached by a cat medium. The papers, the eclipse, and the thought experiment about the beam of light are real; the thoughtful cat explaining them is the storytelling.
Sources and further reading
- Einstein at 112 Mercer Street, Princeton, 1935 to 1955. Documented household and Institute for Advanced Study records.
- The 1905 papers: photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, E=mc squared. 1921 Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect. Documented history of physics.
- Arthur Eddington's 1919 eclipse expedition confirming general relativity; Einstein's āfelt sorry for the Lordā response, documented across multiple sources with minor wording variation.
- Einstein's thought experiment about riding alongside light, from his own autobiographical notes; his violin playing; letter to Carl Seelig, March 11, 1952, āI have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.ā
All historical claims above were checked in the Talking With Pets accuracy review, most recently the full editorial pass of July 2026.
Did Albert Einstein really have a cat named Chico?
Yes. Chico was a cat who lived with Einstein at 112 Mercer Street in Princeton, New Jersey, his home from 1935 until his death in 1955. Source: documented household accounts from Einstein's later life at the Institute for Advanced Study.
What did Einstein publish in 1905?
While working as a patent examiner in Bern, Switzerland, at age twenty-six, Einstein published four papers in a single year: on the photoelectric effect, on Brownian motion, on special relativity, and the paper that led to E=mc squared. He won the Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect, not for relativity, because the Nobel committee considered relativity too new and controversial at the time. Source: documented history of the 1905 papers.
What happened during the 1919 eclipse?
Astronomer Arthur Eddington photographed stars during a solar eclipse to test whether gravity bends light, as Einstein's general theory of relativity predicted. The photographs confirmed the prediction, and Einstein's findings were in newspapers worldwide within days. Asked what he would have done if the results had disproved his theory, Einstein reportedly said he would have felt sorry for the Lord, because the theory was correct. Source: documented Eddington expedition history.
What is Talking With Pets, and is this episode good for kids?
Talking With Pets is an educational history podcast where a brown tabby cat named Prince MoRee contacts the pets of history's greatest figures, who tell the true story of the person they knew. The core episodes are for ages 6 to 10, and this one is part of the Older Kids tier for ages 9 to 12, for families ready to go a little deeper. Every episode is sourced and divided into what is documented, what was filled in, and what was imagined. It is a Talking With Pets production.
Talking With Pets Ā· the true stories only the animals saw.
Chaco, Roxie, Moose, Prince MoRee, and Armando are getting the pilot ready. Join the founding list and we will write to you when the first episodes go live. Listen with someone you like.