The most famous blackboard in the world resides in Oxford’s History of Science Museum. It was salvaged from the cleaners after Albert Einstein gave an Oxford lecture in 1931, and I confess to being one of the many visitors to gaze upon it with awe. It is a talisman, its continuing existence a cultural recognition of the thrall, and importance, of genius.

Andrew Robinson, an Oxford chemistry graduate and a prolific author, opens Einstein in Oxford with the blackboard story. Then he shatters our illusions with Einstein’s own view on the matter, for the great physicist took a dim view of ‘personality cults’. As he told his diary, ‘One could easily see the jealousy of distinguished English scholars. So I protested; but this was perceived as false modesty.’