Another problem, Einstein noted, is that doctors often don't know what a patient's heart rate will be until he or she is on the table being readied for the scan.

CNN: Heart test can pack radioactive wallop

He had stories dating back to before some of his admirers were born, such as the time in 1939 when he and Leo Szilard, another Hungarian scientist, persuaded Albert Einstein to write to President Roosevelt, urging the need to make an atomic bomb before the Germans did.

ECONOMIST: Edward Teller