How are the physicists characterized?

Herbert George Beutler

This physicist is Patient One of von Sahnd's treatment. He is allowed to work in the drawing room with the other physicists whenever solving difficult mathematical or scientific problems. He is monitored by female nurses and checked continually by von Sahnd. He is convinced that he is literally Sir Isaac Newton incarnate.

Ernst Heinrich Ernesti

Patient Two is a little bit nutty himself. Ernesti is also a physicist at the Les Cerisiers Sanatorium, and he also believes he is a reincarnated man of renown. He believes he is literally Albert Einstein, and like the others, he is monitored constantly by a flow of female nurses, and overseen by von Sahnd.

Johann Wilhelm Mobius

Instead of believing he is someone he isn't, Mobius, or Patient Three as von Sahnd calls him, believes he receives a divine visitor. He feels that King Solomon visits him regularly during his stay in the sanatorium, in all his splendor and wisdom. This man must preserve his safety and innocence knowing that one of the others is a murderer.