After over a year, the newly refurbished reflecting pool is done (they drained it and installed a water system that would recirculate the water from the reflecting pool to the Potomac, to help keep the water cleaner, and created nicely paved paths on the edges).
After feeding the ducks at the reflecting pool, we headed over to the Albert Einstein Memorial across the street on the National Academy of Sciences grounds. The kids love the show “Little Einsteins,” where 4 little kids explore and solve problems with the help of classical orchestra museum and an artist of the day. They asked if this was the Dad. I responded “Yes.”
Einstein is depicted seated on a three-step bench of white granite. The bronze figure, weighing approximately 4 tons, is 12 feet in height. Three caissons, totaling 135 tons, sunk in bedrock to a depth of 23 to 25 feet, support the monument.
In its left hand, the figure holds a paper with mathematical equations summarizing three of Einstein's most important scientific contributions: the photoelectric effect, the theory of general relativity, and the equivalence of energy and matter;
(the photoelectric effect)
(the theory of general relativity)
(the equivalence of energy and matter)
Three quotations from Einstein are engraved on the bench where the figure is seated:
As long as I have any choice in the matter, I shall live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance, and equality of all citizens before the law prevail.
Joy and amazement at the beauty and grandeur of this world of which man can just form a faint notion ...
The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true.
The statue and bench are at one side of a circular dais, 28 ft in diameter, and embedded in the dais are more than 2,700 metal studs representing the location of astronomical objects (Sun, Moon, planets, 4 asteroids, 5 galaxies, 10 quasars, and many stars) at noon on April 22, 1979 , when the memorial was dedicated. The studs are different sizes to denote the apparent magnitude of the relevant object, and different studs denote binary stars, spectroscopic binaries, pulsars, globular clusters, open clusters, and quasars. To a visitor standing at the epicenter of the dais, Einstein appears to be making direct eye contact, and any spoken words are notably amplified.
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After over a year, the newly refurbished reflecting pool is done (they drained it and installed a water system that would recirculate the water from the reflecting pool to the Potomac, to help keep the water cleaner, and created nicely paved paths on the edges).
Just across Independence Avenue from the U.S. Botanic Garden Conservatory is a little tucked away park. Bartholdi Park is a two-acre garden that showcases innovative plant combinations in a variety of styles and design themes. The centerpiece of the Park, is the "Fountain of Light and Water," commonly called the Bartholdi Fountain. This cast-iron fountain weighs more than 15 tons and stands 30 feet tall. The lights surrounding its basin are illuminated at night. 
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