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On December 5, 1932, German physicist Albert Einstein was granted a visa to enter America.
"Albert Einstein
The German-born physicist Albert Einstein developed the first of his groundbreaking theories while working as a clerk in the Swiss patent office in Bern. After making his name with four scientific articles published in 1905, he went on to win worldwide fame for his general theory of relativity and a Nobel Prize in 1921 for his explanation of the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect. An outspoken pacifist who was publicly identified with the Zionist movement, Einstein emigrated from Germany to the United States when the Nazis took power before World War II. He lived and worked in Princeton, New Jersey, for the remainder of his life.
Einstein’s Early Life (1879-1904)
Born on March 14, 1879, in the southern German city of Ulm, Albert Einstein grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Munich. As a child, Einstein became fascinated by music (he played the violin), mathematics and science. He dropped out of school in 1894 and moved to Switzerland, where he resumed his schooling and later gained admission to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich. In 1896, he renounced his German citizenship, and remained officially stateless before becoming a Swiss citizen in 1901.
While at Zurich Polytechnic, Einstein fell in love with his fellow student Mileva Maric, but his parents opposed the match and he lacked the money to marry. The couple had an illegitimate daughter, Lieserl, born in early 1902, of whom little is known. After finding a position as a clerk at the Swiss patent office in Bern, Einstein married Maric in 1903; they would have two more children, Hans Albert (born 1904) and Eduard (born 1910).
Einstein’s Miracle Year (1905)
While working at the patent office, Einstein did some of the most creative work of his life, producing no fewer than four groundbreaking articles in 1905 alone. In the first paper, he applied the quantum theory (developed by German physicist Max Planck) to light in order to explain the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect, by which a material will emit electrically charged particles when hit by light. The second article contained Einstein’s experimental proof of the existence of atoms, which he got by analyzing the phenomenon of Brownian motion, in which tiny particles were suspended in water.
In the third and most famous article, titled “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” Einstein confronted the apparent contradiction between two principal theories of physics: Isaac Newton’s concepts of absolute space and time and James Clerk Maxwell’s idea that the speed of light was a constant. To do this, Einstein introduced his special theory of relativity, which held that the laws of physics are the same even for objects moving in different inertial frames (i.e. at constant speeds relative to each other), and that the speed of light is a constant in all inertial frames. A fourth paper concerned the fundamental relationship between mass and energy, concepts viewed previously as completely separate. Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2 (where “c” was the constant speed of light) expressed this relationship.
From Zurich to Berlin (1906-1932)
Einstein continued working at the patent office until 1909, when he finally found a full-time academic post at the University of Zurich. In 1913, he arrived at the University of Berlin, where he was made director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. The move coincided with the beginning of Einstein’s romantic relationship with a cousin of his, Elsa Lowenthal, whom he would eventually marry after divorcing Mileva. In 1915, Einstein published the general theory of relativity, which he considered his masterwork. This theory found that gravity, as well as motion, can affect time and space. According to Einstein’s equivalence principle–which held that gravity’s pull in one direction is equivalent to an acceleration of speed in the opposite direction–if light is bent by acceleration, it must also be bent by gravity. In 1919, two expeditions sent to perform experiments during a solar eclipse found that light rays from distant stars were deflected or bent by the gravity of the sun in just the way Einstein had predicted.
The general theory of relativity was the first major theory of gravity since Newton’s, more than 250 years before, and the results made a tremendous splash worldwide, with the London Times proclaiming a “Revolution in Science” and a “New Theory of the Universe.” Einstein began touring the world, speaking in front of crowds of thousands in the United States, Britain, France and Japan. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for his work on the photoelectric effect, as his work on relativity remained controversial at the time. Einstein soon began building on his theories to form a new science of cosmology, which held that the universe was dynamic instead of static, and was capable of expanding and contracting.
Einstein Moves to the United States (1933-39)
A longtime pacifist and a Jew, Einstein became the target of hostility in Weimar Germany, where many citizens were suffering plummeting economic fortunes in the aftermath of defeat in the Great War. In December 1932, a month before Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Einstein made the decision to emigrate to the United States, where he took a position at the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He would never again enter the country of his birth.
By the time Einstein’s wife Elsa died in 1936, he had been involved for more than a decade with his efforts to find a unified field theory, which would incorporate all the laws of the universe, and those of physics, into a single framework. In the process, Einstein became increasingly isolated from many of his colleagues, who were focused mainly on the quantum theory and its implications, rather than on relativity.
Einstein’s Later Life (1939-1955)
In the late 1930s, Einstein’s theories, including his equation E=mc2, helped form the basis of the development of the atomic bomb. In 1939, at the urging of the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt advising him to approve funding for the development of uranium before Germany could gain the upper hand. Einstein, who became a U.S. citizen in 1940 but retained his Swiss citizenship, was never asked to participate in the resulting Manhattan Project, as the U.S. government suspected his socialist and pacifist views. In 1952, Einstein declined an offer extended by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s premier, to become president of Israel.
Throughout the last years of his life, Einstein continued his quest for a unified field theory. Though he published an article on the theory in Scientific American in 1950, it remained unfinished when he died, of an aortic aneurysm, five years later. In the decades following his death, Einstein’s reputation and stature in the world of physics only grew, as physicists began to unravel the mystery of the so-called “strong force” (the missing piece of his unified field theory) and space satellites further verified the principles of his cosmology."
"Albert Einstein
The German-born physicist Albert Einstein developed the first of his groundbreaking theories while working as a clerk in the Swiss patent office in Bern. After making his name with four scientific articles published in 1905, he went on to win worldwide fame for his general theory of relativity and a Nobel Prize in 1921 for his explanation of the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect. An outspoken pacifist who was publicly identified with the Zionist movement, Einstein emigrated from Germany to the United States when the Nazis took power before World War II. He lived and worked in Princeton, New Jersey, for the remainder of his life.
Einstein’s Early Life (1879-1904)
Born on March 14, 1879, in the southern German city of Ulm, Albert Einstein grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Munich. As a child, Einstein became fascinated by music (he played the violin), mathematics and science. He dropped out of school in 1894 and moved to Switzerland, where he resumed his schooling and later gained admission to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich. In 1896, he renounced his German citizenship, and remained officially stateless before becoming a Swiss citizen in 1901.
While at Zurich Polytechnic, Einstein fell in love with his fellow student Mileva Maric, but his parents opposed the match and he lacked the money to marry. The couple had an illegitimate daughter, Lieserl, born in early 1902, of whom little is known. After finding a position as a clerk at the Swiss patent office in Bern, Einstein married Maric in 1903; they would have two more children, Hans Albert (born 1904) and Eduard (born 1910).
Einstein’s Miracle Year (1905)
While working at the patent office, Einstein did some of the most creative work of his life, producing no fewer than four groundbreaking articles in 1905 alone. In the first paper, he applied the quantum theory (developed by German physicist Max Planck) to light in order to explain the phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect, by which a material will emit electrically charged particles when hit by light. The second article contained Einstein’s experimental proof of the existence of atoms, which he got by analyzing the phenomenon of Brownian motion, in which tiny particles were suspended in water.
In the third and most famous article, titled “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” Einstein confronted the apparent contradiction between two principal theories of physics: Isaac Newton’s concepts of absolute space and time and James Clerk Maxwell’s idea that the speed of light was a constant. To do this, Einstein introduced his special theory of relativity, which held that the laws of physics are the same even for objects moving in different inertial frames (i.e. at constant speeds relative to each other), and that the speed of light is a constant in all inertial frames. A fourth paper concerned the fundamental relationship between mass and energy, concepts viewed previously as completely separate. Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2 (where “c” was the constant speed of light) expressed this relationship.
From Zurich to Berlin (1906-1932)
Einstein continued working at the patent office until 1909, when he finally found a full-time academic post at the University of Zurich. In 1913, he arrived at the University of Berlin, where he was made director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics. The move coincided with the beginning of Einstein’s romantic relationship with a cousin of his, Elsa Lowenthal, whom he would eventually marry after divorcing Mileva. In 1915, Einstein published the general theory of relativity, which he considered his masterwork. This theory found that gravity, as well as motion, can affect time and space. According to Einstein’s equivalence principle–which held that gravity’s pull in one direction is equivalent to an acceleration of speed in the opposite direction–if light is bent by acceleration, it must also be bent by gravity. In 1919, two expeditions sent to perform experiments during a solar eclipse found that light rays from distant stars were deflected or bent by the gravity of the sun in just the way Einstein had predicted.
The general theory of relativity was the first major theory of gravity since Newton’s, more than 250 years before, and the results made a tremendous splash worldwide, with the London Times proclaiming a “Revolution in Science” and a “New Theory of the Universe.” Einstein began touring the world, speaking in front of crowds of thousands in the United States, Britain, France and Japan. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for his work on the photoelectric effect, as his work on relativity remained controversial at the time. Einstein soon began building on his theories to form a new science of cosmology, which held that the universe was dynamic instead of static, and was capable of expanding and contracting.
Einstein Moves to the United States (1933-39)
A longtime pacifist and a Jew, Einstein became the target of hostility in Weimar Germany, where many citizens were suffering plummeting economic fortunes in the aftermath of defeat in the Great War. In December 1932, a month before Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Einstein made the decision to emigrate to the United States, where he took a position at the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He would never again enter the country of his birth.
By the time Einstein’s wife Elsa died in 1936, he had been involved for more than a decade with his efforts to find a unified field theory, which would incorporate all the laws of the universe, and those of physics, into a single framework. In the process, Einstein became increasingly isolated from many of his colleagues, who were focused mainly on the quantum theory and its implications, rather than on relativity.
Einstein’s Later Life (1939-1955)
In the late 1930s, Einstein’s theories, including his equation E=mc2, helped form the basis of the development of the atomic bomb. In 1939, at the urging of the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt advising him to approve funding for the development of uranium before Germany could gain the upper hand. Einstein, who became a U.S. citizen in 1940 but retained his Swiss citizenship, was never asked to participate in the resulting Manhattan Project, as the U.S. government suspected his socialist and pacifist views. In 1952, Einstein declined an offer extended by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s premier, to become president of Israel.
Throughout the last years of his life, Einstein continued his quest for a unified field theory. Though he published an article on the theory in Scientific American in 1950, it remained unfinished when he died, of an aortic aneurysm, five years later. In the decades following his death, Einstein’s reputation and stature in the world of physics only grew, as physicists began to unravel the mystery of the so-called “strong force” (the missing piece of his unified field theory) and space satellites further verified the principles of his cosmology."
Albert Einstein
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The Real Interview With Albert Einstein | Radio Interview Einstein In USA | Real Voice Of...
The real interview of Dr Albert Einstein in USA.
Thank you, my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that on December 5, 1932, German-born physicist Albert Einstein was granted a visa to enter America. As a brilliant Jewish-pacifist, it was wonderful that he managed to escape Nazi Germany in December 1932 before Adolph Hitler came to power the month after in January 1933.
The Real Interview With Albert Einstein | Radio Interview Einstein In USA | Real Voice Of Einstein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H5IjQkC8HM
Images:
1. 1940 Einstein receiving US citizenship.
2. 1921 Albert Einstein Nobel Prize for Physics Portrait.
3. Albert Einstein with wife Elsa.
4. Albert Einstein in a 1947 photo.
Biographies
1. nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?
2. nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/einstein-albert.pdf
Background on Albert Einstein nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=134537&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=click
1. Albert Einstein, in his own words
Think you know the man behind the famous equation? Find out how Einstein dealt with the doubters of relativity--and tried to get his kids to write him more letters.
Albert Einstein is known in popular culture for his famous E = mc2 formula. Scientists know him for revolutionizing physics with his general theory of relativity. But is it possible to know the man behind the big ideas? Yes, thanks to the massive body of written work and correspondence he left behind, which the Einstein Papers Project, currently housed at the California Institute of Technology, is dedicated to collecting, editing, translating and publishing.
The project has provided a huge resource for scholars and the public, with thousands of pages of letters, speeches and handwritten equations from Einstein that provide a glimpse of the scientist at work and the times in which he lived.
Now, those collected papers are available in a free, complete, annotated and translated digital edition. The National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorates have supported the project for nearly 40 years, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, California Institute of Technology and other organizations have also made vital contributions.
Einstein's papers cover everything from his childhood grades and struggles to fund work as a young professor to his introduction of the principle of relativity at just 26 years old. They also show his humor, political thinking, feistiness and deep love of music.
The project is now preparing to publish documents covering one of the most interesting periods in Einstein's life--the decade before he relocated to the United States, when he emerged as a pre-eminent scientist, global celebrity and humanitarian. Having just celebrated Einstein's 136th birthday, here are a few tidbits from just before that era.
Einstein got to know the country that he'd later call home.
"America is interesting; for all its industry and business it is more easily aroused to enthusiasm than other countries I have unsettled with my presence. I had to let myself be shown around like a prize ox, speak countless times in large and small assemblies, deliver countless scientific lectures. It's a miracle that I endured it."
Einstein made his first visit to America in 1921. The visit was controversial, as its primary purpose was to help establish the Hebrew University of Jerusalem--a hot-button issue at the time, although he made sure to deliver several scientific lectures while he was in the country. More than a decade later, Einstein would make another trip to the United States and feel forced to stay, rather than return to a Germany that was witnessing the Nazi party's rise to power.
He showed that scientific experimentation and discovery are full of setbacks, even for the smartest among us (also, he wasn't above guilting his kids).
"My dear boys, you are shrouded in silence again, you rascals. I am feeling well, but there's little news. The experiment on which I had placed so much importance proves nothing for and nothing against the undulatory theory, so all the labors of love were actually in vain."
In 1921, Einstein had devised an experiment to test theories about light particles that behave like waves, but wound up deeming it a failure. After informing colleagues, he wrote this letter to his sons--Hans Albert, then 17, and Eduard, then 11--who were away at school. Hans Albert's reply might be familiar to parents. He hadn't written recently because "First, I don't have any news at all; and second, I've got quite a lot to do at school now."
He recognized the importance of engaging the next generation in scientific discovery, and warned against science getting caught up in international politics.
"I believe the most important thing is to awaken in the younger generation a strong love for scientific truth and ambitions, so that the purer atmosphere thus created will gradually drown out the insensitive emotional motives that have brought so much misfortune upon our current generation."
Einstein was well aware of the political and military divisions that were emerging globally and in 1921 wrote that the "strife among nations and the social strata" was threatening the "internationality of science," which he called humanity's most precious good.
Einstein grappled with the same social justice issues that challenge us today.
"But how is it with society and the state? Can it tolerate national minorities without fighting them? There is no state today that does not regard tolerance and the protection of national minorities as one of its duties. Let us hope the state takes these duties seriously."
During this period, Einstein, who was himself Jewish, became increasingly concerned with growing anti-Semitism in his home country of Germany. He became a leading name in international Zionist groups and an outspoken critic of anti-Semitism. Later, after becoming a U.S. citizen, he campaigned for the civil rights movement.
Then, as now, big, new ideas in science are often controversial. Even Einstein struggled to communicate with those who doubted him.
"I want to note today, to my knowledge, there is hardly a scientist among those who have made substantial contributions to theoretical physics who would not admit that the theory of relativity in its entirety is founded on a logical basis and is in agreement with experimental facts which to date have been reliably established. … I have been accused of running a tasteless advertising campaign for the theory of relativity. But I can say that all my life I have been a friend of well-chosen, sober words and of concise presentation. Highfalutin phrases and words give me goose bumps whether they deal with the theory of relativity or with anything else."
Today, Einstein is best known for his theory of general relativity, which he first published in 1915. At the time, though, the theory was controversial, both for political reasons and because of its upending of Newtonian gravitational theory. Resistance from the scientific community continued even after British astronomer Arthur Eddington confirmed Einstein's ideas while observing a solar eclipse in 1919. This 1920 publication from Einstein rebuked a German anti-relativity group, and is among a large body of defenses, explanations and elaborations Einstein authored on his famous theory.
Einstein recommended someone else for the Nobel Prize in Physics.
"When someday future generations will describe the history of the advances made in the physics of our era, they will have to associate one of the most significant advances in our knowledge of the nature of atoms with the name of Niels Bohr. ...He is, without a doubt, one of the greatest innovators of our time in the field of science."
Einstein wrote to the Nobel committee in mid-1922 to recommend Niels Bohr for the award. Bohr and Einstein frequently engaged in friendly verbal sparring over quantum mechanics and other physics issues. Einstein's papers are full of examples of those debates, and of the warm personal relationship the men seemed to share.
And was nominated himself, as noted by Bohr.
"I would like to congratulate you most warmly on the award of the Nobel Prize. This public acknowledgement cannot mean anything to you, of course, but the associated funds might perhaps bring about some relief in your working conditions. For me it was the greatest honor and joy I could possibly get through external circumstances that I should be considered for the prize award at the same time as you."
In November of 1922--just a month before the committee announced the Nobel winners--Bohr wrote this to Einstein, expressing his pleasure that they were both being considered, but noting his discomfort about possibly taking the prize before Einstein. Einstein replied:
"Your affectionate letter reached me shortly before my departure from Japan. I can say without exaggeration that it pleased me as much as the Nobel Prize. I find your fear of possibly getting the prize before me especially endearing--that is genuinely Bohr-like."
And then they both won at the same time.
"I am very pleased--among other reasons, because the reproachful question: Why don't you get the Nobel Prize? can no longer be posed to me (I reply each time: Because I am not the one who awards the prize.)
Einstein sent this 1923 letter shortly after being informed that he had won the Nobel Prize for his work in theoretical physics. Einstein's Nobel was actually the 1921 award. During the selection process for that year, the committee hadn't been able to find a nominee that met its criteria--largely because it was resistant to give Einstein the award for general relativity, which was still controversial. According to Nobel rules, the deferred prize meant they could reserve it for a year and still award another in 1922. In December of that year, the academy made two announcements: Einstein had won the 1921 award--for explaining the photoelectric effect, not relativity--and Bohr took the 1922 award for his work on the structure of atoms.
The Digital Einstein Papers was launched by Princeton University Press, in partnership with Tizra, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the California Institute of Technology. Additional information about the Einstein Papers Project can be found at einstein.caltech.edu.
-- Rob Margetta, [login to see] [login to see]
Investigators
Diana Kormos-Buchwald
Jurgen Renn
Martin Klein
Herbert Bailey
William Becker
Alice Calaprice
Robert J. Schulmann
Related Institutions/Organizations
Princeton University Press
California Institute of Technology
Locations
California Institute of Technology
Related Programs
Integrative Activities in Physics
Related Awards
#9710507 Einstein Papers Translation Project
#7818236 Organization of the Einstein Archive
#1058125 The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein
#9005603 The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein
#7681181 Planning an Edition of the Writings of Albert Einstein
#8216424 The Collected Papers and Correspondence of Albert Einstein
#8219470 The Collected Papers and Correspondence of Albert Einstein
#8509041 English-Language Translation of the Papers of Albert Einstein
Years Research Conducted
1977 - 2014
Total Grants
$1,697,017"
Background from nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/einstein-albert.pdf
"ALBERT EINSTEIN was born in Ulm, Germany on March 14, 1879. After education in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, and professorships in Bern, Zurich, and Prague, he was appointed Director of Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin in 1914. He became a professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton beginning the fall of 1933, became an American citizen in the summer of 1936, and died in Princeton, New Jersey on April 18, 1955. In the Berlin where in 1900 Max Planck discovered the quantum, Einstein fifteen years later explained to us that gravitation is not something foreign and mysterious acting through space, but a manifestation of space geometry itself. He came to understand that the universe does not go on from everlasting to everlasting, but begins with a big bang. Of all the questions with which the great thinkers have occupied themselves in all lands and all centuries, none has ever claimed greater primacy than the origin of the universe, and no contributions to this issue ever made by any man anytime have proved themselves richer in illuminating power than those that Einstein made.
Einstein's 1915 geometrical and still standard theory of gravity provides a prototype unsurpassed even today what a physical theory should be and do, but for him it only an outlying ridge in the arduous climb to a greater good that he never achieved. Scale the greatest Everest that there is or ever can be, uncover the secret of existence-that what Einstein struggled for with all the force of his life.
How the mountain peak magnetized his attention he told us over and over. "Out yonder," he wrote, "lies this hu world, which exists independently of us human beings a which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle...."* again, 'The most incomprehensible thing about the world that it is comprehensible." And yet again, "All of these endeavors are based on the belief that existence should have completely harmonious structure. Today we have ground than ever before for allowing ourselves to be force away from this wonderful belief." :j:
When the climber laboring toward the Everest peak comes to the summit of an intermediate ridge, he stops at new panorama of beauty for a new fix on the goal of his and a new charting of the road ahead; but he knows that is at the beginning, not at the end of his travail. What Einstein did in spacetime physics, in statistical mechanics, and quantum physics, he viewed as such intermediate ridges, s way stations, such panoramic points for planning further advance, not as achievements in themselves. Those way stations were not his goals. They were not even preplanning means to his goal. They were catch-as-catch-can means to goal.
Those who know physicists and mountaineers know traits they have in common: a "dream-and-drive" spirit bulldog tenacity of purpose, and an openness to try any route to the summit. Who does not know Einstein's definition of a scientist as "an unscrupulous opportunist;"* or his words on another occasion, "But the years of anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing, their alternations of confidence and exhaustion, and the final emergence into the light--only those who have experienced it can understand that." t For such a man there are not goals. There is only the goal, that distant peak.
Who was this climber? How did he come to be bewitched by the mountain? Where did he learn to climb so well? Who were his companions? What were some of his adventures? And how far did he get?
I first saw and heard Einstein in the fall of 1933, shortly after he had come to Princeton to take up his long-term residence there. It was a small, quiet, unpublicized seminar. Unified field theory was to be the topic, it became clear, when Einstein entered the room and began to speak. His English, though a little accented, was beautifully clear and slow. His delivery was spontaneous and serious, with every now and then a touch of humor. I was not familiar with his subject at that time, but I could sense that he had his doubts about the particular version of unified field theory he was then discus sing. It was clear on this first encounter that Einstein was following very much his own line, independent of the interest in nuclear physics then at high tide in the United States.
There was one extraordinary feature of Einstein the man I glimpsed that day, and came to see ever more clearly each time I visited his house, climbed to his upstairs study, and we explained to each other what we did not understand. Over and above his warmth and considerateness, over and abo his deep thoughtfulness, I came to see, he had a unique se of the world of man and nature as one harmonious a someday understandable whole, with all of us feeling our w forward through the darkness together.
Our last time together came twenty-one years later, April 14, 1954, when Einstein kindly accepted an invitation speak at my relativity seminar. It was the last talk he ever gave, almost exactly a year before his death. He not o reviewed how he looked at general relativity and how he h come to general relativity, he also spoke as strongly as ever his discomfort with the probabilistic features that quantum had brought into the description of nature. "When a person such as a mouse observes the universe," he ask feelingly, "does that change the state of the universe?"* also commented in the course of the seminar that the laws physics should be simple. One of us asked, "But what if th are not simple?" "Then I would not be interested in them he replied.
How Einstein the boy became Einstein the man is a sto told in more than one biography, but nowhere better than Einstein's own sketch of his life, so well known as to preclude repetition here. Who does not remember him in difficulty secondary school, antagonized by his teacher's determinate to stuff knowledge down his throat, and in turn antagonize the teacher? Who that takes the fast train from Bern Zurich does not feel a lift of the heart as he flashes through the little town of Aarau? There, we recall, Einstein was s to a special school because he could not get along in ordinary school. There, guided by a wise and kind teach he could work with mechanical devices and magnets as well as books and paper. Einstein was fascinated. He grew. He succeeded in entering the Ziiricher Polytechnikum. One who was a rector there not long ago told me that during his period of directorship he had taken the record book from Einstein's year off the shelf. He discovered that Einstein had not been the bottom student, but next to the bottom student. And how had he done in the laboratory? Always behind. He still did not hit it off with his teachers, excellent teachers as he himself said. His professor, Minkowski, later to be one of the warmest defenders of Einstein's ideas, was nevertheless turned off by Einstein the student. Einstein frankly said he disliked lectures and examinations. He liked to read. If one thinks of him as lonesome, one makes a great mistake. He had close col leagues. He talked and walked and walked and talked.
To Einstein's development, his few close student col leagues meant much; but even more important were the older colleagues he met in books. Among them were Leibniz and Newton, Hume and Kant, Faraday and Helmholtz, Hertz and Maxwell, Kirchhoff and Mach, Boltzmann and Planck. Through their influence, he turned from mathematics to physics, from a subject where there are dismayingly multitudinous directions for dizzy man to choose between, to a subject where this one and only physical world directs our endeavors.
Of all heroes, Spinoza was Einstein's greatest. No one expressed more strongly than he a belief in the harmony, the beauty, and-most of all-the ultimate comprehensibility of nature. In a letter to his old and close friend, Maurice Solo vine, Einstein wrote, "I can understand your aversion to the use of the term 'religion' to describe an emotional and psychological attitude which shows itself most clearly in Spinoza. [But] I have not found a better expression than 'religious' for the trust in the rational nature of reality that is, at least to a certain extent, accessible to human reason."* In later yea Einstein was asked to do a life on Spinoza. He excused hi self from writing the biography itself on the ground tha1t required "exceptional purity, imagination and modesty, but he did write the introduction. If it is true, as Thom Mann tells us, that each one of us models his or her l consciously or unconsciously on someone who has gone b fore, 1then who was closer to being role-creator for Einstein than Spinoza?
Search out the simple central principles of this physical world-that was becoming Einstein's goal. But how? Man in the street thinks of Einstein as a man who could on make headway in his work by dint of pages of complicated mathematics; the truth is the direct opposite. As Hilbert p it, "Every boy in the streets of our mathematical Gotting: understands more about four-dimensional geometry th Einstein. Yet, despite that, Einstein did the work and not mathematicians. "j: Time and again, in the photoelectric effect, in relativity, in gravitation, the amateur grasped t simple point that had eluded the expert. Where did Einstein acquire this ability to sift the essential from the non-essential.
The management consultant firm of Booz, Allen Hamilton, which does so much today to select leaders of great enterprises, has a word of advice: What a young man do and who he works with in his first job has more effect on future than anything else one can easily analyze. What w Einstein's first job? In the view of many, the position of cl in the Swiss patent office was no proper job at all, but it w the best job available to anyone with his unpromising university record. He served in the Bern office for seven years, fro
* A. Einstein, Lettres a Maurice Solovine (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1956), p. (January 1, 1956).
t B. Hoffmann, Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel (New York: Viking, 1972), p
:j: P. Frank, Einstein, Sein Leben und seine Zeit (München: Paul List Verlag, 19
p. 335.
ALBERT EINSTEIN 103
June 23, 1902 to July 6, 1909. Every morning he faced his quota of patent applications. Those were the days when a patent application had to be accompanied by a working model. Over and above the applications and the models was the boss, a kind man, a strict man, and a wise man. He gave strict instructions: explain very briefly, if possible in a single sentence, why the device will work or why it won't; why the application should be granted or why it should be denied. Day after day Einstein had to distill the central lesson out of objects of the greatest variety that man has power to invent. Who knows a more marvelous way to acquire a sense of what physics is and how it works? It is no wonder that Einstein always delighted in the machinery of the physical world-from the action of a compass needle to the meandering of a river, and from the perversities of a gyroscope to the drive of Flettner's rotor ship.
Whoever asks how Einstein won his unsurpassed power of expression, let him turn back to the days in the patent office and the boss who, "More severe than my father ... taught me to express myself correctly."* The writings of Galileo are studied in secondary schools in Italy today, not for their physics, but for their clarity and power of expression. Let the secondary school student of our day take up the writings of Einstein if he would see how to make in the pithiest way a telling point.
From Bern, fate took Einstein to Zurich, to Prague, and then to the Berlin where his genius flowered. Colleagueship never meant more in his life than it did during his 19 years there, and never did he have greater colleagues: Max Planck, James Franck, Walter Nernst, Max von Laue, and others. Colleagueship did not mean chat; it meant serious consultation on troubling issues. No tool of colleagueship was most useful than the seminar. James Franck explained to me democracy of this trial by jury. The professor, he emphasized, stood on no pinnacle, beyond question by any student. On the contrary, the student had both the right and 1 obligation to question and to speak up.
If the writing of letters is a test of colleagueship, let no o question Einstein's power to give and to receive. Consider enormous correspondence. Look at the postcards he s over the years to the closest in spirit of all his colleagues, P Ehrenfest in Leyden. They deal with the issues nearest to heart at the moment, whether the direction of time in statistical mechanics, or quantum fluctuations in radiation, or problem of general relativity. Or examine his correspondence with Max Born, or Maurice Solovine, or with everyday people. To a schoolgirl who mentioned among many other things her problems with mathematics, he replied, "Do n worry about your difficulties in mathematics; I can ass you that mine are greater."* Why did Einstein correspond much with people that you and I would call outsiders? Did not feel that the amateur brings a freshness of outlook u matched by the specialist with his narrow view?
The benefits of colleagueship with Einstein I experience more than once, but never with greater immediate bene than in statistical mechanics. In a discussion of radiation damping, he referred me to a published dialogue of 19 between himself and Walter Ritz. The two men agreed disagree and stated their opposing positions in this sin clear sentence: "Ritz treats the limitations to retarded potentials as one of the foundations of the second law of thermodynamics, while Einstein believes that the irreversibility of radiation depends exclusively on considerations of probability.
In accord with the position of Einstein, Richard Feynman and I found that the one-sidedness in time of radiation reaction can be understood as originating in the one-sidedness in time of the conditions imposed on the far-away absorber particles, and not at all in the elementary law of interaction between particle and particle. I joined the ranks of what I can only call "the worriers"-those like Boltzman, Ehrenfest, and Einstein himself, and many, many others-who ask, why initial conditions? Why not final conditions? Or why not some mixture of the two? And most of all, why thus and such initial conditions and no other? No one who knows of Einstein's lifelong concern with such issues can fail to have a new sense of appreciation on reading his great early papers on statistical mechanics, and not least among them the famous 1905 paper on the theory of the Brownian motion. Surely the perspective he won from these worries will someday help show us the way to Everest. ·
Best known of Einstein's great trio of 1905 papers, however, is that on special relativity. "Henceforth," as Minkowski put the lesson of Einstein, "space by itself and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality."* Historians of science can tell us that if Einstein had not come to this version of spacetime it would have been achieved by Lorentz, or Poincare, or another, who would also have come eventually to that famous equation E = mc2, with all its consequences. But it still comes to us as a miracle that the patent office clerk was the one to deduce this greatest of lessons about spacetime from clues on the surface so innocent as those afforded by electricity and magnetism. Miracle? Would it not have been a greater miracle if anyone but a patent office clerk had discovered relativity? Who else could have distilled this simple central point from all the clutter of electromagnetism than someone whose job it was over an over each day to extract simplicity out of complexity?
If others could have given us special relativity, who el but Einstein, sixty-four years ago, could have given us general relativity? Who else knew out of the welter of facts t fasten on that which is absolutely central? Did the central point come to him, as legend has it, from talking to a house painter who had fallen off a roof and reported feelin weightless during the fall? We all know that he called the 1908 insight the "happiest thought of my life"*-the ide that there is no such thing as gravitation, only free-fall. By thus giving up gravitation, Einstein won back gravitation as manifestation of a warp in the geometry of space. His 191 and still standard geometric theory of gravitation can be summarized, we know today, in a single, simple sentence: "Space tells matter how to move and matter tells space how
curve." t Through his insight that there is no such thing gravity, he had had the creative imagination to bring together.
two great currents of thought out of the past. Riemann ha stressed that geometry is not a God-given perfection, but part of physics; and Mach had argued that acceleration makes no sense except with respect to frame determined the other masses in the universe.
It i1s unnecessary to recall the three famous early tests Einstein's geometric theory of gravitation: the bending light by the sun, the red-shift of light from the sun, and t precession of the orbit of the planet Mercury going around the sun. Neither is it necessary to expound the important insights that have come and continue to come out of general relativity. Einstein showed that the law for the motion of mass in space and time does not have to be made a separate item in the conceptual structure of physics. Instead, it comes straight out of geometric law as applied to the space immediately surrounding the mass in question. Moreover, the geometry that he had freed from slavery to Euclid, and that he had assigned to carry gravitation force, could throw off its chains, become a free agent, and, under the name of "gravitational radiation," carry energy from place to place over and above any energy carried by electromagnetic waves-an effect for which Joseph H. Taylor, L.A. Fowler, P. M. McCulloch, and their Arecibo Observatory colleagues in December 1978 announced impressive evidence.*
One does not need to go into the theory of gravitationally collapsed objects or the evidence we have today, some impressive, some less convincing, for black holes: one of some ten solar masses in the constellation Cygnus; others in the range of a hundred or a thousand solar masses at the centers of five of the star clusters in our galaxy; one about four million times as massive as the sun at the center of the Milky Way; and one with a mass of about five billion suns in the center of the galaxy M87.
The collapse at the center of a black hole marks a third "gate of time," t additional to the big bang and the big crunch.
Einstein tried to escape all three. Two years after general relativity, Einstein was already applying it to cosmology. He gave reasons to regard the universe as closed and qualitatively similar to a three sphere, the three-dimensional generalization of the surface of a rubber balloon. To his surprise, he found that the universe is dynamic and not static.
Einstein could not accept this result. First, he found fault with Alexander Friedmann's mathematics. Then he retract this criticism, and looked for the fault in his own theory gravitation. It turned out there was no natural way to change that theory. The arguments of simplicity and correspondence in the appropriate limit with the Newtonian theory gravitation left no alternative. There being no natural way change the theory, he looked for the least unnatural way could find to alter it. He introduced a so-called "cosmologic term" with the sole point and purpose to hold the universe static. A decade later, Edwin Hubble, working at Mount W son Observatory, gave convincing evidence that the universe is actually expanding. Thereafter, Einstein remarked that t cosmological term "was the biggest blunder of my life. Today, looking back, we can forgive him his blunder and give him the credit for the theory of gravitation that predicted t expansion. Of all the great predictions that science has ever made over the centuries, each of us has his own list of spectaculars, but among them all was there ever one greater than this, to predict, and predict correctly, and predict against expectation, a phenomenon so fantastic as the expansion the universe? When did nature ever grant man greater encouragement to believe he will someday understand the mystery of existence?
Why did Einstein in the beginning reject his own great discovery? Why did he feel that the universe should go from everlasting to everlasting, when to all brought up in t Judeo-Christian tradition an original creation is the natural concept? I am indebted to Professor Hans Kung for suggesting an important influence on Einstein from his hero Spinoza. Why was twenty-four-year-old Spinoza was excommunicated in 1656 from the synagogue in Amsterdam? Because denied the doctrine of an original creation. What was the difficulty with that doctrine? In all that nothingness before creation where could that clock sit that should tell the universe when to come into being!
Today we have a little less difficulty with this point. We do not escape by saying that the universe goes through cycle after cycle of big bang and collapse, world without end. There is not the slightest warrant in general relativity for such a way of speaking. On the contrary, it provides no place whatsoever for a before the big bang or an after the big crunch. Quantum theory goes further. It tells us that however permissible it is to speak about space, it is not permissible to speak in other than approximate terms of space time. To do so would violate the uncertainty principle-as that principle applies to the dynamics of geometry. No, when it comes to small distances either in the here and the now or in the most extreme stages of gravitational collapse, space time loses all meaning, and time itself is not an ultimate category in the description of nature. No one who wrestles with the three gates of time, our greatest heritage of paradox-and of promise-from general relativity can escape the all-pervasive influence of the quantum.
Spinoza's influence on his thinking about cosmology Einstein could shake off-but not Spinoza's deterministic out look. Proposition XXIX in The Ethics of Spinoza states: "Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of divine nature."* Einstein accepted determinism in his mind, his heart, his very bones.
Who then was first clearly to recognize that the real world, and the world of the quantum, is a world of chance and unpredictability? Einstein himself!
Why did Einstein, who in the beginning with Max Planck and Niels Bohr had done so much to give quantum physics the world, in the end stand out so strongly and so lonesome against the central point? What other explanation is the than this "set" he had received from Spinoza?
The early quantum work of Bohr and Einstein is almost a duet. Einstein, 1905: The energy of light is carried fro place to place as quanta of energy, accidental in time a space in their arrival. Bohr, 1913: The atom is characterize by stationary states, and the difference in energy between o and another is given off in a light quantum. Einstein, 191 The processes of light emission and light absorption are governed by the laws of chance, but satisfy the principle detailed balance. Bohr, 1927: Complementarity prevents detailed description in space and time of what goes on in t act of emission. Here Bohr and Einstein parted company Einstein spoke against Einstein. The Einstein who in 19 said there was no escape from the laws of chance was insisting by 1916, as he did all the rest of his life, against the evidence and against the views of his greatest colleagues, that "G does not [play] dice."*
If an army is being defeated it can still, by a sufficient skillful rear-guard action, have an important influence on t outcome. No one who in all the great history of the quantum contested with Niels Bohr did more to sharpen a strengthen Bohr's position than Einstein. Never in recent centuries was there a dialogue between two greater men over a longer period on a deeper issue at a higher level of leadership, nor a nobler theme for playwright, poet, or artist. From their earliest encounter, Einstein liked Bohr, writing him on May 2, 1920, "I am studying your great works-a when I get stuck anywhere-now have the pleasure of seeing your friendly young face before me smiling and explaining."* Bohr viewed Einstein with admiration and warm regard. Let him who will read Bohr's account of the famous dialogue, even today unsurpassed for its comprehensive articulation of the central issues. Who knows what the quantum means who does not know the friendly but deadly serious battles fought and won on the double-slit experiment, on the possibilities for weighing a photon, on the Einstein-Podolsky Rosen experiment, and on the danger associated with unguarded use of the word "reality"? To help to clarify the issues brought up in the later years of the great dialogue, Bohr found himself forced to introduce the word "phenomenon" t to describe an elementary quantum process "brought to a close by an irreversible act of amplification. "j: Thanks to that word, brought in to withstand the criticism of Einstein, we have learned in our own time to state the central lesson of the quantum in a single simple sentence, "No elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon ."§
How could the correctness of quantum theory be by now so widely accepted, and its decisive point so well perceived, if there had been no great figure, no Einstein, to draw the embers of unease together in a single flame and thereby drive Bohr to that fuller formulation of the central lesson which he at last achieved?
If the quantum and the gates of time are the strongest features of this strange universe, and if they shall prove in time to come the doorways to that deeper view for which Einstein searched, mankind will forever remember w gratitude his absolutely decisive involvement with both.
No one who is a professor and receives his support fro the larger community can rightly be unmindful of his obligations to it. He must speak to the higher values of all insomuch as he is qualified and able to do so. Burden though it was Einstein to take on this extra duty, he did it to the best of ability. What he defended were no whims, no lightly he fancies, but goals he held and deeply desired for the world If in this undertaking he had some of the character of an Old Testament prophet, he also had all of the eloquence. Statements from Einstein created an audience, and the audience created the pressure for more statements. What is long, E stein felt, is lost. Pith and pungency were the points of pronouncements. Who does .not know the causes for wh he stood! Whoever admires greatness, let him read Einstein words about the goals and the greatness of recently depart colleagues, as well as heroes out of the deeper past. For social justice and social responsibility, Einstein spoke up time a again: "A hundred times every day I remind myself that inner and outer life are based on the labors of other m living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to g in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."* He stressed the necessity of a political system that d not rely on coercion if people are to contribute all that lies them to achieve.
He expressed admiration for the system of social ca going back to Bismarck, that makes provision for the individual in case of illness or need. Living through the tragedy of two world wars, he protested many times about the wastefulness of war: lives lost, hatred engendered, and values perverted; but when it came to a choice between war or freedom and justice, he spoke for freedom and justice. He refused the invitation to become the first president of Israel, but he worked after that declination as effectively as before for the welfare of a unique community, remarking, "The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice and the desire for personal independence-these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it."*
Things did not go in the world as Einstein had hoped. Things did not go in physics as he had desired. Determinism stood in ruins. His search for a unified geometric theory of all the forces of nature came to nothing-though today, with a new and wider concept of what geometry is, in the sense of a so-called "gauge theory," marvelous new progress is now being made toward his dream of unification. He left us in general relativity with an ideal for a physical theory that has never been surpassed. He showed a unique talent for finding the central point in every subject to which his philosophical antecedents gave right of entry. He did as much as any man who ever lived to make us face up to the central mysteries of this strange world.
Einstein worked with all his force to the very end. In his last days he had a tired face. Everything that he had to give he had given for his causes, and among them that greatest of causes, the goal toward which he had climbed so high, that snowy peak whose light today shines brighter than ever: "A
completely harmonious account of existence." t
As we look up at the distant intervening craggy slope, we are amazed suddenly to make out the faint sound of a high far-off violin. Then out of the valley behind and below us comes an answering burst of song, young voices all. Th chorus of the loftiness of the peak, the danger of the climb and the greatness of the climber, the man of peace with t white hair. He no longer belongs to any one country, any o group, any one age, we hear them singing, but to all friends of the future. Least of all, they tell us, does Einstein anymore belong to Einstein. He belongs to the world.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A Bibliographical Checklist and Index, compiled by Nell Bonie, Monique Russ, and Dan H. Lawrence. New York: Readex Micro print Corp., 1960. 34 pp.
This bibliography has been emended and updated by Helen Dukas as part of the not yet published work of the ongoing Einstein papers project at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, 08540. The 34-page length of this bibliography and its availability in leading libraries makes it appropriate, in the case of Einstein, to replace the bibliography customarily at the end of the usual memorial by a list of some of the more important writings about him. Princeton University Press, on February 22, 1971, signed an agreement with the Estate of Albert Einstein, Otto Nathan and Helen Dukas, trustees, for the preparation of an authorized annotated scholarly edition of the papers of Albert Einstein, the preparation of which is, however, expected to require some years. In the meantime, reference can be made to the unauthorized Russian four-volume series, Sobranie Nauchnykh Trudov.
Einstein, The Life and Times, by Ronald W. Clarke. New York: The World Publishing Co., 1971. xv+ 719, with index.
This is a convenient reference for one seeking a year-to-year chronology of the events, great and small, in Einstein's life.
Albert Einstein; the Human Side: New Glimpses from his Archives, translated and edited by Banesh Hoffmann and Helen Dukas. Princeton Univ. Press, 1979. 167 pp.
Contains many hitherto unpublished letters that Einstein, in reply to every day people, wrote with no thought of publication in mind. They illuminate the wider outlooks and concerns of Einstein, the man.
Albert Einstein, Creator and Rebel, by Banesh Hoffmann with the collaboration of Helen Dukas. New York: Viking, 1972. xv + 272, with index.
This is a brief biography by one who worked with him as an assistant in 1936 and 1937, who understands and describes Einstein's achievements in clear, simple terms.
Einstein, His Life and Times, by Philipp Frank, translated from German manuscript by George Rosen, edited and revised Shuichi Kusaka. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1947. xxiii + 2 with index.
This is. written by one who knew Einstein well, in 1912 became Einstein's successor as professor of theoretical physics at the University of Prague and kept contact after he became professor of physics at Harvard University in 1940.
Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, edited by Paul Arthur SchiX Evanston, Ill.: Library of Living Philosophers, 1949. xvi+ 7 wi1th index, subsequently made available in a paperback editi by Schilpp.
This book begins with "Autobiographical Notes" by Einstein himsellf facing pages of English and German. It tells much about the motivati of childhood and youth, as well as later years. It contains commentaries Einstein's work by such colleagues as Arnold Sommerfeld, Louis de Br lie, H.P. Robertson, Wolfgang Pauli, Max Born, Max von Laue and K Godel. Niels Bohr's contribution, "Discussion with Einstein on Epistem logical Problems in Atomic Physics," is a so far unrivaled account not o of the great dialogue, but also of the role of measurement in quant mechanics. More on the dialogue will be found in The Philosophy of Quant Mechanics by Max Jammer Qohn Wiley, New York, 1974, xii+ 536), es cially chapter 5, "The Bohr-Einstein Debate."
Einstein, by Jeremy Bernstein, edited by Frank Kermode. N York: Viking, 1973. xii+ 241. Appeared originally in the pa of The New Yorker.
Albert Einstein, by Carl Seelig. Munchen, Germany: Europa Verl 1960. 446 pp.
Described by Thomas Mann, Einstein's Princeton neighbor during World War II, as "an important contribution to the biography of a whose genius on whose shadowy [tastende] beginning he throws new light."
Letters on Wave Mechanics: Schrodinger, Planck, Einstein, Lorentz, edited by K. Przibram, translation and introduction by MartinJ. Klein. New York: Philosophical Library, 1967. xv+ 75.
Contains, on pages 23-40, the Einstein-Schri'idinger correspondence deal ing with the issues raised by quantum mechanics about the nature of "reality."
Einstein to Ehrenfest Postcards, sent over the years 1915 to 1933 to Einstein's closest scientific colleague, and given by Mrs. Ehren fest to John Archibald Wheeler, September, 1956, and depos ited by him in the Einstein Archives like many other Einstein writings, to wait for the definitive publication of his works to see the light of day.
Albert Einstein-Arnold Sommerfeld Briefwechsel, von Armin Hermann herausgegeben und kommentiert. Basel, Germany: Schwabe, 1978. 126 pp.
Correspondence (1912 to 1949) between two outstanding, but very different physicists, beginning with relativity, but then turning to quantum theory and mirroring the physics of the times.
Albert Einstein-Hedwig und Max Born, Briefwechsel, 1916-1955, kommentiert von Max Born, Geleitwort von Bertrand Russell, Vorwort von Werner Heisenberg. Munchen: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1969, 330 pages; translated by Irene Born as The Born-Einstein Letters: the Correspondence Between Albert Einstein and Max and Hedwig Born, 1916-1955, (New York: Walker, 1971, xi+ 240).
Deals with issues human as well as scientific. C. P. Snow remarked of this book in the Financial Times of London, "nothing I have said ought to prevent anyone, however illiterate scientifically, from getting hold of these Born-Einstein letters .... there is nothing quite like this correspondence of theirs."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs Lt Col Charlie Brown LTC Greg Henning LTC Jeff Shearer Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Maj Marty Hogan CPT Scott Sharon CWO3 Dennis M. SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SSG William Jones SGT John " Mac " McConnell SP5 Mark Kuzinski PO1 H Gene Lawrence PO2 Kevin Parker PO3 Bob McCord
The Real Interview With Albert Einstein | Radio Interview Einstein In USA | Real Voice Of Einstein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H5IjQkC8HM
Images:
1. 1940 Einstein receiving US citizenship.
2. 1921 Albert Einstein Nobel Prize for Physics Portrait.
3. Albert Einstein with wife Elsa.
4. Albert Einstein in a 1947 photo.
Biographies
1. nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?
2. nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/einstein-albert.pdf
Background on Albert Einstein nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=134537&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=click
1. Albert Einstein, in his own words
Think you know the man behind the famous equation? Find out how Einstein dealt with the doubters of relativity--and tried to get his kids to write him more letters.
Albert Einstein is known in popular culture for his famous E = mc2 formula. Scientists know him for revolutionizing physics with his general theory of relativity. But is it possible to know the man behind the big ideas? Yes, thanks to the massive body of written work and correspondence he left behind, which the Einstein Papers Project, currently housed at the California Institute of Technology, is dedicated to collecting, editing, translating and publishing.
The project has provided a huge resource for scholars and the public, with thousands of pages of letters, speeches and handwritten equations from Einstein that provide a glimpse of the scientist at work and the times in which he lived.
Now, those collected papers are available in a free, complete, annotated and translated digital edition. The National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorates have supported the project for nearly 40 years, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, California Institute of Technology and other organizations have also made vital contributions.
Einstein's papers cover everything from his childhood grades and struggles to fund work as a young professor to his introduction of the principle of relativity at just 26 years old. They also show his humor, political thinking, feistiness and deep love of music.
The project is now preparing to publish documents covering one of the most interesting periods in Einstein's life--the decade before he relocated to the United States, when he emerged as a pre-eminent scientist, global celebrity and humanitarian. Having just celebrated Einstein's 136th birthday, here are a few tidbits from just before that era.
Einstein got to know the country that he'd later call home.
"America is interesting; for all its industry and business it is more easily aroused to enthusiasm than other countries I have unsettled with my presence. I had to let myself be shown around like a prize ox, speak countless times in large and small assemblies, deliver countless scientific lectures. It's a miracle that I endured it."
Einstein made his first visit to America in 1921. The visit was controversial, as its primary purpose was to help establish the Hebrew University of Jerusalem--a hot-button issue at the time, although he made sure to deliver several scientific lectures while he was in the country. More than a decade later, Einstein would make another trip to the United States and feel forced to stay, rather than return to a Germany that was witnessing the Nazi party's rise to power.
He showed that scientific experimentation and discovery are full of setbacks, even for the smartest among us (also, he wasn't above guilting his kids).
"My dear boys, you are shrouded in silence again, you rascals. I am feeling well, but there's little news. The experiment on which I had placed so much importance proves nothing for and nothing against the undulatory theory, so all the labors of love were actually in vain."
In 1921, Einstein had devised an experiment to test theories about light particles that behave like waves, but wound up deeming it a failure. After informing colleagues, he wrote this letter to his sons--Hans Albert, then 17, and Eduard, then 11--who were away at school. Hans Albert's reply might be familiar to parents. He hadn't written recently because "First, I don't have any news at all; and second, I've got quite a lot to do at school now."
He recognized the importance of engaging the next generation in scientific discovery, and warned against science getting caught up in international politics.
"I believe the most important thing is to awaken in the younger generation a strong love for scientific truth and ambitions, so that the purer atmosphere thus created will gradually drown out the insensitive emotional motives that have brought so much misfortune upon our current generation."
Einstein was well aware of the political and military divisions that were emerging globally and in 1921 wrote that the "strife among nations and the social strata" was threatening the "internationality of science," which he called humanity's most precious good.
Einstein grappled with the same social justice issues that challenge us today.
"But how is it with society and the state? Can it tolerate national minorities without fighting them? There is no state today that does not regard tolerance and the protection of national minorities as one of its duties. Let us hope the state takes these duties seriously."
During this period, Einstein, who was himself Jewish, became increasingly concerned with growing anti-Semitism in his home country of Germany. He became a leading name in international Zionist groups and an outspoken critic of anti-Semitism. Later, after becoming a U.S. citizen, he campaigned for the civil rights movement.
Then, as now, big, new ideas in science are often controversial. Even Einstein struggled to communicate with those who doubted him.
"I want to note today, to my knowledge, there is hardly a scientist among those who have made substantial contributions to theoretical physics who would not admit that the theory of relativity in its entirety is founded on a logical basis and is in agreement with experimental facts which to date have been reliably established. … I have been accused of running a tasteless advertising campaign for the theory of relativity. But I can say that all my life I have been a friend of well-chosen, sober words and of concise presentation. Highfalutin phrases and words give me goose bumps whether they deal with the theory of relativity or with anything else."
Today, Einstein is best known for his theory of general relativity, which he first published in 1915. At the time, though, the theory was controversial, both for political reasons and because of its upending of Newtonian gravitational theory. Resistance from the scientific community continued even after British astronomer Arthur Eddington confirmed Einstein's ideas while observing a solar eclipse in 1919. This 1920 publication from Einstein rebuked a German anti-relativity group, and is among a large body of defenses, explanations and elaborations Einstein authored on his famous theory.
Einstein recommended someone else for the Nobel Prize in Physics.
"When someday future generations will describe the history of the advances made in the physics of our era, they will have to associate one of the most significant advances in our knowledge of the nature of atoms with the name of Niels Bohr. ...He is, without a doubt, one of the greatest innovators of our time in the field of science."
Einstein wrote to the Nobel committee in mid-1922 to recommend Niels Bohr for the award. Bohr and Einstein frequently engaged in friendly verbal sparring over quantum mechanics and other physics issues. Einstein's papers are full of examples of those debates, and of the warm personal relationship the men seemed to share.
And was nominated himself, as noted by Bohr.
"I would like to congratulate you most warmly on the award of the Nobel Prize. This public acknowledgement cannot mean anything to you, of course, but the associated funds might perhaps bring about some relief in your working conditions. For me it was the greatest honor and joy I could possibly get through external circumstances that I should be considered for the prize award at the same time as you."
In November of 1922--just a month before the committee announced the Nobel winners--Bohr wrote this to Einstein, expressing his pleasure that they were both being considered, but noting his discomfort about possibly taking the prize before Einstein. Einstein replied:
"Your affectionate letter reached me shortly before my departure from Japan. I can say without exaggeration that it pleased me as much as the Nobel Prize. I find your fear of possibly getting the prize before me especially endearing--that is genuinely Bohr-like."
And then they both won at the same time.
"I am very pleased--among other reasons, because the reproachful question: Why don't you get the Nobel Prize? can no longer be posed to me (I reply each time: Because I am not the one who awards the prize.)
Einstein sent this 1923 letter shortly after being informed that he had won the Nobel Prize for his work in theoretical physics. Einstein's Nobel was actually the 1921 award. During the selection process for that year, the committee hadn't been able to find a nominee that met its criteria--largely because it was resistant to give Einstein the award for general relativity, which was still controversial. According to Nobel rules, the deferred prize meant they could reserve it for a year and still award another in 1922. In December of that year, the academy made two announcements: Einstein had won the 1921 award--for explaining the photoelectric effect, not relativity--and Bohr took the 1922 award for his work on the structure of atoms.
The Digital Einstein Papers was launched by Princeton University Press, in partnership with Tizra, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the California Institute of Technology. Additional information about the Einstein Papers Project can be found at einstein.caltech.edu.
-- Rob Margetta, [login to see] [login to see]
Investigators
Diana Kormos-Buchwald
Jurgen Renn
Martin Klein
Herbert Bailey
William Becker
Alice Calaprice
Robert J. Schulmann
Related Institutions/Organizations
Princeton University Press
California Institute of Technology
Locations
California Institute of Technology
Related Programs
Integrative Activities in Physics
Related Awards
#9710507 Einstein Papers Translation Project
#7818236 Organization of the Einstein Archive
#1058125 The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein
#9005603 The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein
#7681181 Planning an Edition of the Writings of Albert Einstein
#8216424 The Collected Papers and Correspondence of Albert Einstein
#8219470 The Collected Papers and Correspondence of Albert Einstein
#8509041 English-Language Translation of the Papers of Albert Einstein
Years Research Conducted
1977 - 2014
Total Grants
$1,697,017"
Background from nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/einstein-albert.pdf
"ALBERT EINSTEIN was born in Ulm, Germany on March 14, 1879. After education in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, and professorships in Bern, Zurich, and Prague, he was appointed Director of Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin in 1914. He became a professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton beginning the fall of 1933, became an American citizen in the summer of 1936, and died in Princeton, New Jersey on April 18, 1955. In the Berlin where in 1900 Max Planck discovered the quantum, Einstein fifteen years later explained to us that gravitation is not something foreign and mysterious acting through space, but a manifestation of space geometry itself. He came to understand that the universe does not go on from everlasting to everlasting, but begins with a big bang. Of all the questions with which the great thinkers have occupied themselves in all lands and all centuries, none has ever claimed greater primacy than the origin of the universe, and no contributions to this issue ever made by any man anytime have proved themselves richer in illuminating power than those that Einstein made.
Einstein's 1915 geometrical and still standard theory of gravity provides a prototype unsurpassed even today what a physical theory should be and do, but for him it only an outlying ridge in the arduous climb to a greater good that he never achieved. Scale the greatest Everest that there is or ever can be, uncover the secret of existence-that what Einstein struggled for with all the force of his life.
How the mountain peak magnetized his attention he told us over and over. "Out yonder," he wrote, "lies this hu world, which exists independently of us human beings a which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle...."* again, 'The most incomprehensible thing about the world that it is comprehensible." And yet again, "All of these endeavors are based on the belief that existence should have completely harmonious structure. Today we have ground than ever before for allowing ourselves to be force away from this wonderful belief." :j:
When the climber laboring toward the Everest peak comes to the summit of an intermediate ridge, he stops at new panorama of beauty for a new fix on the goal of his and a new charting of the road ahead; but he knows that is at the beginning, not at the end of his travail. What Einstein did in spacetime physics, in statistical mechanics, and quantum physics, he viewed as such intermediate ridges, s way stations, such panoramic points for planning further advance, not as achievements in themselves. Those way stations were not his goals. They were not even preplanning means to his goal. They were catch-as-catch-can means to goal.
Those who know physicists and mountaineers know traits they have in common: a "dream-and-drive" spirit bulldog tenacity of purpose, and an openness to try any route to the summit. Who does not know Einstein's definition of a scientist as "an unscrupulous opportunist;"* or his words on another occasion, "But the years of anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing, their alternations of confidence and exhaustion, and the final emergence into the light--only those who have experienced it can understand that." t For such a man there are not goals. There is only the goal, that distant peak.
Who was this climber? How did he come to be bewitched by the mountain? Where did he learn to climb so well? Who were his companions? What were some of his adventures? And how far did he get?
I first saw and heard Einstein in the fall of 1933, shortly after he had come to Princeton to take up his long-term residence there. It was a small, quiet, unpublicized seminar. Unified field theory was to be the topic, it became clear, when Einstein entered the room and began to speak. His English, though a little accented, was beautifully clear and slow. His delivery was spontaneous and serious, with every now and then a touch of humor. I was not familiar with his subject at that time, but I could sense that he had his doubts about the particular version of unified field theory he was then discus sing. It was clear on this first encounter that Einstein was following very much his own line, independent of the interest in nuclear physics then at high tide in the United States.
There was one extraordinary feature of Einstein the man I glimpsed that day, and came to see ever more clearly each time I visited his house, climbed to his upstairs study, and we explained to each other what we did not understand. Over and above his warmth and considerateness, over and abo his deep thoughtfulness, I came to see, he had a unique se of the world of man and nature as one harmonious a someday understandable whole, with all of us feeling our w forward through the darkness together.
Our last time together came twenty-one years later, April 14, 1954, when Einstein kindly accepted an invitation speak at my relativity seminar. It was the last talk he ever gave, almost exactly a year before his death. He not o reviewed how he looked at general relativity and how he h come to general relativity, he also spoke as strongly as ever his discomfort with the probabilistic features that quantum had brought into the description of nature. "When a person such as a mouse observes the universe," he ask feelingly, "does that change the state of the universe?"* also commented in the course of the seminar that the laws physics should be simple. One of us asked, "But what if th are not simple?" "Then I would not be interested in them he replied.
How Einstein the boy became Einstein the man is a sto told in more than one biography, but nowhere better than Einstein's own sketch of his life, so well known as to preclude repetition here. Who does not remember him in difficulty secondary school, antagonized by his teacher's determinate to stuff knowledge down his throat, and in turn antagonize the teacher? Who that takes the fast train from Bern Zurich does not feel a lift of the heart as he flashes through the little town of Aarau? There, we recall, Einstein was s to a special school because he could not get along in ordinary school. There, guided by a wise and kind teach he could work with mechanical devices and magnets as well as books and paper. Einstein was fascinated. He grew. He succeeded in entering the Ziiricher Polytechnikum. One who was a rector there not long ago told me that during his period of directorship he had taken the record book from Einstein's year off the shelf. He discovered that Einstein had not been the bottom student, but next to the bottom student. And how had he done in the laboratory? Always behind. He still did not hit it off with his teachers, excellent teachers as he himself said. His professor, Minkowski, later to be one of the warmest defenders of Einstein's ideas, was nevertheless turned off by Einstein the student. Einstein frankly said he disliked lectures and examinations. He liked to read. If one thinks of him as lonesome, one makes a great mistake. He had close col leagues. He talked and walked and walked and talked.
To Einstein's development, his few close student col leagues meant much; but even more important were the older colleagues he met in books. Among them were Leibniz and Newton, Hume and Kant, Faraday and Helmholtz, Hertz and Maxwell, Kirchhoff and Mach, Boltzmann and Planck. Through their influence, he turned from mathematics to physics, from a subject where there are dismayingly multitudinous directions for dizzy man to choose between, to a subject where this one and only physical world directs our endeavors.
Of all heroes, Spinoza was Einstein's greatest. No one expressed more strongly than he a belief in the harmony, the beauty, and-most of all-the ultimate comprehensibility of nature. In a letter to his old and close friend, Maurice Solo vine, Einstein wrote, "I can understand your aversion to the use of the term 'religion' to describe an emotional and psychological attitude which shows itself most clearly in Spinoza. [But] I have not found a better expression than 'religious' for the trust in the rational nature of reality that is, at least to a certain extent, accessible to human reason."* In later yea Einstein was asked to do a life on Spinoza. He excused hi self from writing the biography itself on the ground tha1t required "exceptional purity, imagination and modesty, but he did write the introduction. If it is true, as Thom Mann tells us, that each one of us models his or her l consciously or unconsciously on someone who has gone b fore, 1then who was closer to being role-creator for Einstein than Spinoza?
Search out the simple central principles of this physical world-that was becoming Einstein's goal. But how? Man in the street thinks of Einstein as a man who could on make headway in his work by dint of pages of complicated mathematics; the truth is the direct opposite. As Hilbert p it, "Every boy in the streets of our mathematical Gotting: understands more about four-dimensional geometry th Einstein. Yet, despite that, Einstein did the work and not mathematicians. "j: Time and again, in the photoelectric effect, in relativity, in gravitation, the amateur grasped t simple point that had eluded the expert. Where did Einstein acquire this ability to sift the essential from the non-essential.
The management consultant firm of Booz, Allen Hamilton, which does so much today to select leaders of great enterprises, has a word of advice: What a young man do and who he works with in his first job has more effect on future than anything else one can easily analyze. What w Einstein's first job? In the view of many, the position of cl in the Swiss patent office was no proper job at all, but it w the best job available to anyone with his unpromising university record. He served in the Bern office for seven years, fro
* A. Einstein, Lettres a Maurice Solovine (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1956), p. (January 1, 1956).
t B. Hoffmann, Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel (New York: Viking, 1972), p
:j: P. Frank, Einstein, Sein Leben und seine Zeit (München: Paul List Verlag, 19
p. 335.
ALBERT EINSTEIN 103
June 23, 1902 to July 6, 1909. Every morning he faced his quota of patent applications. Those were the days when a patent application had to be accompanied by a working model. Over and above the applications and the models was the boss, a kind man, a strict man, and a wise man. He gave strict instructions: explain very briefly, if possible in a single sentence, why the device will work or why it won't; why the application should be granted or why it should be denied. Day after day Einstein had to distill the central lesson out of objects of the greatest variety that man has power to invent. Who knows a more marvelous way to acquire a sense of what physics is and how it works? It is no wonder that Einstein always delighted in the machinery of the physical world-from the action of a compass needle to the meandering of a river, and from the perversities of a gyroscope to the drive of Flettner's rotor ship.
Whoever asks how Einstein won his unsurpassed power of expression, let him turn back to the days in the patent office and the boss who, "More severe than my father ... taught me to express myself correctly."* The writings of Galileo are studied in secondary schools in Italy today, not for their physics, but for their clarity and power of expression. Let the secondary school student of our day take up the writings of Einstein if he would see how to make in the pithiest way a telling point.
From Bern, fate took Einstein to Zurich, to Prague, and then to the Berlin where his genius flowered. Colleagueship never meant more in his life than it did during his 19 years there, and never did he have greater colleagues: Max Planck, James Franck, Walter Nernst, Max von Laue, and others. Colleagueship did not mean chat; it meant serious consultation on troubling issues. No tool of colleagueship was most useful than the seminar. James Franck explained to me democracy of this trial by jury. The professor, he emphasized, stood on no pinnacle, beyond question by any student. On the contrary, the student had both the right and 1 obligation to question and to speak up.
If the writing of letters is a test of colleagueship, let no o question Einstein's power to give and to receive. Consider enormous correspondence. Look at the postcards he s over the years to the closest in spirit of all his colleagues, P Ehrenfest in Leyden. They deal with the issues nearest to heart at the moment, whether the direction of time in statistical mechanics, or quantum fluctuations in radiation, or problem of general relativity. Or examine his correspondence with Max Born, or Maurice Solovine, or with everyday people. To a schoolgirl who mentioned among many other things her problems with mathematics, he replied, "Do n worry about your difficulties in mathematics; I can ass you that mine are greater."* Why did Einstein correspond much with people that you and I would call outsiders? Did not feel that the amateur brings a freshness of outlook u matched by the specialist with his narrow view?
The benefits of colleagueship with Einstein I experience more than once, but never with greater immediate bene than in statistical mechanics. In a discussion of radiation damping, he referred me to a published dialogue of 19 between himself and Walter Ritz. The two men agreed disagree and stated their opposing positions in this sin clear sentence: "Ritz treats the limitations to retarded potentials as one of the foundations of the second law of thermodynamics, while Einstein believes that the irreversibility of radiation depends exclusively on considerations of probability.
In accord with the position of Einstein, Richard Feynman and I found that the one-sidedness in time of radiation reaction can be understood as originating in the one-sidedness in time of the conditions imposed on the far-away absorber particles, and not at all in the elementary law of interaction between particle and particle. I joined the ranks of what I can only call "the worriers"-those like Boltzman, Ehrenfest, and Einstein himself, and many, many others-who ask, why initial conditions? Why not final conditions? Or why not some mixture of the two? And most of all, why thus and such initial conditions and no other? No one who knows of Einstein's lifelong concern with such issues can fail to have a new sense of appreciation on reading his great early papers on statistical mechanics, and not least among them the famous 1905 paper on the theory of the Brownian motion. Surely the perspective he won from these worries will someday help show us the way to Everest. ·
Best known of Einstein's great trio of 1905 papers, however, is that on special relativity. "Henceforth," as Minkowski put the lesson of Einstein, "space by itself and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality."* Historians of science can tell us that if Einstein had not come to this version of spacetime it would have been achieved by Lorentz, or Poincare, or another, who would also have come eventually to that famous equation E = mc2, with all its consequences. But it still comes to us as a miracle that the patent office clerk was the one to deduce this greatest of lessons about spacetime from clues on the surface so innocent as those afforded by electricity and magnetism. Miracle? Would it not have been a greater miracle if anyone but a patent office clerk had discovered relativity? Who else could have distilled this simple central point from all the clutter of electromagnetism than someone whose job it was over an over each day to extract simplicity out of complexity?
If others could have given us special relativity, who el but Einstein, sixty-four years ago, could have given us general relativity? Who else knew out of the welter of facts t fasten on that which is absolutely central? Did the central point come to him, as legend has it, from talking to a house painter who had fallen off a roof and reported feelin weightless during the fall? We all know that he called the 1908 insight the "happiest thought of my life"*-the ide that there is no such thing as gravitation, only free-fall. By thus giving up gravitation, Einstein won back gravitation as manifestation of a warp in the geometry of space. His 191 and still standard geometric theory of gravitation can be summarized, we know today, in a single, simple sentence: "Space tells matter how to move and matter tells space how
curve." t Through his insight that there is no such thing gravity, he had had the creative imagination to bring together.
two great currents of thought out of the past. Riemann ha stressed that geometry is not a God-given perfection, but part of physics; and Mach had argued that acceleration makes no sense except with respect to frame determined the other masses in the universe.
It i1s unnecessary to recall the three famous early tests Einstein's geometric theory of gravitation: the bending light by the sun, the red-shift of light from the sun, and t precession of the orbit of the planet Mercury going around the sun. Neither is it necessary to expound the important insights that have come and continue to come out of general relativity. Einstein showed that the law for the motion of mass in space and time does not have to be made a separate item in the conceptual structure of physics. Instead, it comes straight out of geometric law as applied to the space immediately surrounding the mass in question. Moreover, the geometry that he had freed from slavery to Euclid, and that he had assigned to carry gravitation force, could throw off its chains, become a free agent, and, under the name of "gravitational radiation," carry energy from place to place over and above any energy carried by electromagnetic waves-an effect for which Joseph H. Taylor, L.A. Fowler, P. M. McCulloch, and their Arecibo Observatory colleagues in December 1978 announced impressive evidence.*
One does not need to go into the theory of gravitationally collapsed objects or the evidence we have today, some impressive, some less convincing, for black holes: one of some ten solar masses in the constellation Cygnus; others in the range of a hundred or a thousand solar masses at the centers of five of the star clusters in our galaxy; one about four million times as massive as the sun at the center of the Milky Way; and one with a mass of about five billion suns in the center of the galaxy M87.
The collapse at the center of a black hole marks a third "gate of time," t additional to the big bang and the big crunch.
Einstein tried to escape all three. Two years after general relativity, Einstein was already applying it to cosmology. He gave reasons to regard the universe as closed and qualitatively similar to a three sphere, the three-dimensional generalization of the surface of a rubber balloon. To his surprise, he found that the universe is dynamic and not static.
Einstein could not accept this result. First, he found fault with Alexander Friedmann's mathematics. Then he retract this criticism, and looked for the fault in his own theory gravitation. It turned out there was no natural way to change that theory. The arguments of simplicity and correspondence in the appropriate limit with the Newtonian theory gravitation left no alternative. There being no natural way change the theory, he looked for the least unnatural way could find to alter it. He introduced a so-called "cosmologic term" with the sole point and purpose to hold the universe static. A decade later, Edwin Hubble, working at Mount W son Observatory, gave convincing evidence that the universe is actually expanding. Thereafter, Einstein remarked that t cosmological term "was the biggest blunder of my life. Today, looking back, we can forgive him his blunder and give him the credit for the theory of gravitation that predicted t expansion. Of all the great predictions that science has ever made over the centuries, each of us has his own list of spectaculars, but among them all was there ever one greater than this, to predict, and predict correctly, and predict against expectation, a phenomenon so fantastic as the expansion the universe? When did nature ever grant man greater encouragement to believe he will someday understand the mystery of existence?
Why did Einstein in the beginning reject his own great discovery? Why did he feel that the universe should go from everlasting to everlasting, when to all brought up in t Judeo-Christian tradition an original creation is the natural concept? I am indebted to Professor Hans Kung for suggesting an important influence on Einstein from his hero Spinoza. Why was twenty-four-year-old Spinoza was excommunicated in 1656 from the synagogue in Amsterdam? Because denied the doctrine of an original creation. What was the difficulty with that doctrine? In all that nothingness before creation where could that clock sit that should tell the universe when to come into being!
Today we have a little less difficulty with this point. We do not escape by saying that the universe goes through cycle after cycle of big bang and collapse, world without end. There is not the slightest warrant in general relativity for such a way of speaking. On the contrary, it provides no place whatsoever for a before the big bang or an after the big crunch. Quantum theory goes further. It tells us that however permissible it is to speak about space, it is not permissible to speak in other than approximate terms of space time. To do so would violate the uncertainty principle-as that principle applies to the dynamics of geometry. No, when it comes to small distances either in the here and the now or in the most extreme stages of gravitational collapse, space time loses all meaning, and time itself is not an ultimate category in the description of nature. No one who wrestles with the three gates of time, our greatest heritage of paradox-and of promise-from general relativity can escape the all-pervasive influence of the quantum.
Spinoza's influence on his thinking about cosmology Einstein could shake off-but not Spinoza's deterministic out look. Proposition XXIX in The Ethics of Spinoza states: "Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of divine nature."* Einstein accepted determinism in his mind, his heart, his very bones.
Who then was first clearly to recognize that the real world, and the world of the quantum, is a world of chance and unpredictability? Einstein himself!
Why did Einstein, who in the beginning with Max Planck and Niels Bohr had done so much to give quantum physics the world, in the end stand out so strongly and so lonesome against the central point? What other explanation is the than this "set" he had received from Spinoza?
The early quantum work of Bohr and Einstein is almost a duet. Einstein, 1905: The energy of light is carried fro place to place as quanta of energy, accidental in time a space in their arrival. Bohr, 1913: The atom is characterize by stationary states, and the difference in energy between o and another is given off in a light quantum. Einstein, 191 The processes of light emission and light absorption are governed by the laws of chance, but satisfy the principle detailed balance. Bohr, 1927: Complementarity prevents detailed description in space and time of what goes on in t act of emission. Here Bohr and Einstein parted company Einstein spoke against Einstein. The Einstein who in 19 said there was no escape from the laws of chance was insisting by 1916, as he did all the rest of his life, against the evidence and against the views of his greatest colleagues, that "G does not [play] dice."*
If an army is being defeated it can still, by a sufficient skillful rear-guard action, have an important influence on t outcome. No one who in all the great history of the quantum contested with Niels Bohr did more to sharpen a strengthen Bohr's position than Einstein. Never in recent centuries was there a dialogue between two greater men over a longer period on a deeper issue at a higher level of leadership, nor a nobler theme for playwright, poet, or artist. From their earliest encounter, Einstein liked Bohr, writing him on May 2, 1920, "I am studying your great works-a when I get stuck anywhere-now have the pleasure of seeing your friendly young face before me smiling and explaining."* Bohr viewed Einstein with admiration and warm regard. Let him who will read Bohr's account of the famous dialogue, even today unsurpassed for its comprehensive articulation of the central issues. Who knows what the quantum means who does not know the friendly but deadly serious battles fought and won on the double-slit experiment, on the possibilities for weighing a photon, on the Einstein-Podolsky Rosen experiment, and on the danger associated with unguarded use of the word "reality"? To help to clarify the issues brought up in the later years of the great dialogue, Bohr found himself forced to introduce the word "phenomenon" t to describe an elementary quantum process "brought to a close by an irreversible act of amplification. "j: Thanks to that word, brought in to withstand the criticism of Einstein, we have learned in our own time to state the central lesson of the quantum in a single simple sentence, "No elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon ."§
How could the correctness of quantum theory be by now so widely accepted, and its decisive point so well perceived, if there had been no great figure, no Einstein, to draw the embers of unease together in a single flame and thereby drive Bohr to that fuller formulation of the central lesson which he at last achieved?
If the quantum and the gates of time are the strongest features of this strange universe, and if they shall prove in time to come the doorways to that deeper view for which Einstein searched, mankind will forever remember w gratitude his absolutely decisive involvement with both.
No one who is a professor and receives his support fro the larger community can rightly be unmindful of his obligations to it. He must speak to the higher values of all insomuch as he is qualified and able to do so. Burden though it was Einstein to take on this extra duty, he did it to the best of ability. What he defended were no whims, no lightly he fancies, but goals he held and deeply desired for the world If in this undertaking he had some of the character of an Old Testament prophet, he also had all of the eloquence. Statements from Einstein created an audience, and the audience created the pressure for more statements. What is long, E stein felt, is lost. Pith and pungency were the points of pronouncements. Who does .not know the causes for wh he stood! Whoever admires greatness, let him read Einstein words about the goals and the greatness of recently depart colleagues, as well as heroes out of the deeper past. For social justice and social responsibility, Einstein spoke up time a again: "A hundred times every day I remind myself that inner and outer life are based on the labors of other m living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to g in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."* He stressed the necessity of a political system that d not rely on coercion if people are to contribute all that lies them to achieve.
He expressed admiration for the system of social ca going back to Bismarck, that makes provision for the individual in case of illness or need. Living through the tragedy of two world wars, he protested many times about the wastefulness of war: lives lost, hatred engendered, and values perverted; but when it came to a choice between war or freedom and justice, he spoke for freedom and justice. He refused the invitation to become the first president of Israel, but he worked after that declination as effectively as before for the welfare of a unique community, remarking, "The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice and the desire for personal independence-these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it."*
Things did not go in the world as Einstein had hoped. Things did not go in physics as he had desired. Determinism stood in ruins. His search for a unified geometric theory of all the forces of nature came to nothing-though today, with a new and wider concept of what geometry is, in the sense of a so-called "gauge theory," marvelous new progress is now being made toward his dream of unification. He left us in general relativity with an ideal for a physical theory that has never been surpassed. He showed a unique talent for finding the central point in every subject to which his philosophical antecedents gave right of entry. He did as much as any man who ever lived to make us face up to the central mysteries of this strange world.
Einstein worked with all his force to the very end. In his last days he had a tired face. Everything that he had to give he had given for his causes, and among them that greatest of causes, the goal toward which he had climbed so high, that snowy peak whose light today shines brighter than ever: "A
completely harmonious account of existence." t
As we look up at the distant intervening craggy slope, we are amazed suddenly to make out the faint sound of a high far-off violin. Then out of the valley behind and below us comes an answering burst of song, young voices all. Th chorus of the loftiness of the peak, the danger of the climb and the greatness of the climber, the man of peace with t white hair. He no longer belongs to any one country, any o group, any one age, we hear them singing, but to all friends of the future. Least of all, they tell us, does Einstein anymore belong to Einstein. He belongs to the world.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A Bibliographical Checklist and Index, compiled by Nell Bonie, Monique Russ, and Dan H. Lawrence. New York: Readex Micro print Corp., 1960. 34 pp.
This bibliography has been emended and updated by Helen Dukas as part of the not yet published work of the ongoing Einstein papers project at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, 08540. The 34-page length of this bibliography and its availability in leading libraries makes it appropriate, in the case of Einstein, to replace the bibliography customarily at the end of the usual memorial by a list of some of the more important writings about him. Princeton University Press, on February 22, 1971, signed an agreement with the Estate of Albert Einstein, Otto Nathan and Helen Dukas, trustees, for the preparation of an authorized annotated scholarly edition of the papers of Albert Einstein, the preparation of which is, however, expected to require some years. In the meantime, reference can be made to the unauthorized Russian four-volume series, Sobranie Nauchnykh Trudov.
Einstein, The Life and Times, by Ronald W. Clarke. New York: The World Publishing Co., 1971. xv+ 719, with index.
This is a convenient reference for one seeking a year-to-year chronology of the events, great and small, in Einstein's life.
Albert Einstein; the Human Side: New Glimpses from his Archives, translated and edited by Banesh Hoffmann and Helen Dukas. Princeton Univ. Press, 1979. 167 pp.
Contains many hitherto unpublished letters that Einstein, in reply to every day people, wrote with no thought of publication in mind. They illuminate the wider outlooks and concerns of Einstein, the man.
Albert Einstein, Creator and Rebel, by Banesh Hoffmann with the collaboration of Helen Dukas. New York: Viking, 1972. xv + 272, with index.
This is a brief biography by one who worked with him as an assistant in 1936 and 1937, who understands and describes Einstein's achievements in clear, simple terms.
Einstein, His Life and Times, by Philipp Frank, translated from German manuscript by George Rosen, edited and revised Shuichi Kusaka. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1947. xxiii + 2 with index.
This is. written by one who knew Einstein well, in 1912 became Einstein's successor as professor of theoretical physics at the University of Prague and kept contact after he became professor of physics at Harvard University in 1940.
Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, edited by Paul Arthur SchiX Evanston, Ill.: Library of Living Philosophers, 1949. xvi+ 7 wi1th index, subsequently made available in a paperback editi by Schilpp.
This book begins with "Autobiographical Notes" by Einstein himsellf facing pages of English and German. It tells much about the motivati of childhood and youth, as well as later years. It contains commentaries Einstein's work by such colleagues as Arnold Sommerfeld, Louis de Br lie, H.P. Robertson, Wolfgang Pauli, Max Born, Max von Laue and K Godel. Niels Bohr's contribution, "Discussion with Einstein on Epistem logical Problems in Atomic Physics," is a so far unrivaled account not o of the great dialogue, but also of the role of measurement in quant mechanics. More on the dialogue will be found in The Philosophy of Quant Mechanics by Max Jammer Qohn Wiley, New York, 1974, xii+ 536), es cially chapter 5, "The Bohr-Einstein Debate."
Einstein, by Jeremy Bernstein, edited by Frank Kermode. N York: Viking, 1973. xii+ 241. Appeared originally in the pa of The New Yorker.
Albert Einstein, by Carl Seelig. Munchen, Germany: Europa Verl 1960. 446 pp.
Described by Thomas Mann, Einstein's Princeton neighbor during World War II, as "an important contribution to the biography of a whose genius on whose shadowy [tastende] beginning he throws new light."
Letters on Wave Mechanics: Schrodinger, Planck, Einstein, Lorentz, edited by K. Przibram, translation and introduction by MartinJ. Klein. New York: Philosophical Library, 1967. xv+ 75.
Contains, on pages 23-40, the Einstein-Schri'idinger correspondence deal ing with the issues raised by quantum mechanics about the nature of "reality."
Einstein to Ehrenfest Postcards, sent over the years 1915 to 1933 to Einstein's closest scientific colleague, and given by Mrs. Ehren fest to John Archibald Wheeler, September, 1956, and depos ited by him in the Einstein Archives like many other Einstein writings, to wait for the definitive publication of his works to see the light of day.
Albert Einstein-Arnold Sommerfeld Briefwechsel, von Armin Hermann herausgegeben und kommentiert. Basel, Germany: Schwabe, 1978. 126 pp.
Correspondence (1912 to 1949) between two outstanding, but very different physicists, beginning with relativity, but then turning to quantum theory and mirroring the physics of the times.
Albert Einstein-Hedwig und Max Born, Briefwechsel, 1916-1955, kommentiert von Max Born, Geleitwort von Bertrand Russell, Vorwort von Werner Heisenberg. Munchen: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1969, 330 pages; translated by Irene Born as The Born-Einstein Letters: the Correspondence Between Albert Einstein and Max and Hedwig Born, 1916-1955, (New York: Walker, 1971, xi+ 240).
Deals with issues human as well as scientific. C. P. Snow remarked of this book in the Financial Times of London, "nothing I have said ought to prevent anyone, however illiterate scientifically, from getting hold of these Born-Einstein letters .... there is nothing quite like this correspondence of theirs."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs Lt Col Charlie Brown LTC Greg Henning LTC Jeff Shearer Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Maj Marty Hogan CPT Scott Sharon CWO3 Dennis M. SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SSG William Jones SGT John " Mac " McConnell SP5 Mark Kuzinski PO1 H Gene Lawrence PO2 Kevin Parker PO3 Bob McCord
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SPC Nancy Greene
Excellent! Someone should Share This with the House and Remind Them what Our Country and Constitution really Stand For! Just my two cents..,
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Great share, we're lucky that he got out or Germany when he did.
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SPC Nancy Greene
Men of His Generation born in Germany demonstrated Great Courage and Strength! My Great Grandfather left Germany around the same time..,It Totally Amazes Me that Men in this Era had the Strength and Wisdom to come to the USA in the Name of Freedom!
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Excellent Bio history of a great genius, Albert Einstein! I studied Physics in Highschool & College... & Love science, but mainly Physics & Astronomy... Thank you for sharing, SGT (Join to see)!!!
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SPC Nancy Greene
SGT Kerry Harkins, I took Astronomy as an undergrad and loved looking at the stats. Am still able to identify Orion’s Belt and a few constellations in the winter solstice. Didn’t get into physics until Grad School. Then it was advanced Anatomy and Physiology and Statistics. I appreciate the sciences and have come to increasing my knowledge. You have provided a means to increasing my knowledge through your Shares and I am thoroughly enjoying learning History on RP! Much more interesting than reading any history book! Thanks to all my RP Brothers and Sisters for helping me to “Learn something New Everyday”!
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Sgt (Join to see)
SPC Nancy Greene You are very welcome, Nancy. I also learn a great deal from RP each day... I learn from the posts & responses I share... It is all a matter of my attitude & professional training...
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