Albert Einstein, the world-renowned physicist and Nobel Prize winner, spent two weeks at Deep Creek Lake in September 1946, shortly after the end of World War II. Reportedly seeking both solitude from the atomic bomb controversy and medical advice regarding a discovered condition, he came at the invitation of John Steiding of Midland, Maryland, a chemist for the Celanese Fiber Company who knew Einstein through a co-worker's wife sculpting a bust of him. Einstein stayed at Dr. Frank Wilson's lakeside cottage in the Turkey Neck area, then known as the Mar-Jo-Lodge, and apparently spent much of his time reading and walking the shoreline, sometimes chatting with local people who did not know who he was. His most publicized activity was sailing in a small sailboat, and he refused to wear a life jacket even though he could not swim. He was described as a light eater with a love of locally grown corn on the cob, and stories from the visit reflected both his simplicity and his distinctive humor, including his explanation of relativity to Fred Steiding: if you sit on a park bench with your sweetheart, an hour seems like a minute, but if you sit on a hot stove by mistake, a minute seems like an hour. His hosts protected his privacy so successfully that the visit did not become public until 1979, thirty-three years later. Einstein died in 1955 at age seventy-six, but he left behind a sentiment shared by many visitors to Deep Creek Lake: it was "one of the most restful and zestful vacations."