Maurice Solovine

As a young student of philosophy in Bern, Solovine applied to study physics with Albert Einstein in response to an advertisement.

The two men struck up a close relationship and Einstein was said to say to Solovine a few days after meeting him: "It is not necessary to give you lessons in physics.

Every piece of furniture was moved and plates, cups, forks, knives and books were scattered all over the flat.

Einstein is reputed to have greeted Solovine the next evening with the following words: "You lousy guy, you were cheeky enough to stay away from a meeting of the Akademie to listen to the violin?

He then moved to Paris, where he helped publish the Revue philosophique between 1908 and 1919 and worked as a freelance translator and editor of classic texts on the history of European philosophy and of contemporary mathematicians.