E=mc². No doubt millions of people are familiar with this revolutionary equation and the scientist, Albert Einstein (1879–1955), who postulated it. After all, being named Time’s Person of the Century has a way of keeping one in the spotlight.

For those who have always wanted to understand the implications behind that deceptively simple formula and explore the life of the man behind it, now’s your chance. The traveling exhibit Einstein—put together by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles—has landed at Boston’s Museum of Science to shed light on this cultural icon, his groundbreaking theories as well as his colorful personal life.

On view are fascinating multimedia displays that clearly relate Einstein’s seminal discoveries on time, energy, gravity and light, as well as many of his own scientific manuscripts, papers and even his 1921 Nobel Prize for physics. Detailed yet easy-to-understand explanations of such ideas as his Special Theory of Relativity—which revolutionized our knowledge of time and space and produced his famous equation—and his General Theory of Relativity—which introduced gravity into the mix—illuminate the mind of the man who started as a simple patent clerk before becoming one of the greatest scientists in the world.

Even today, physicists still marvel at the depth of his genius. In more ways than one, Einstein was a man truly ahead of his time.

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