26. MIT Vol. II, p. 7.
27. Ibid., pp. 6–7. See also September 26, 1918, “Kopfzettel” (LSP 1/10).
28. MIT Vol. II, p. 8.
29. Szilard ended his military career as a titular ordnance cadet in Reserve Unit No. 4, a rank conferred on October 1, 1918 (LSP 1/10).
30. November 27, 1928, Certificate, translated by Alexander Somlyo (LSP 1/18).
31. Szilard’s 1960 dictated “Memoirs” (LSP 40/10).
32. “Memoirs,” p. 199 (BSP).
33. Attila Pók, “Jászi as Organizational Leader of a Reform Movement,” p. 9. My thanks to the author for sharing this manuscript.
34. MIT Vol. II, p. 14. Baptismal Register, Reform Church, District VI–VII Budapest (LSP 1/11).
35. “Memoirs,” pp. 200–201 (BSP).
36. PIA 638 fond-l/1920-IV-13-2096, Institute of the History of the Party. Attila Pók to the author, August 8, 1986. A detective completed the report on February 15, 1920, absolving the Szilard brothers from further suspicion.
37. “One should never undertake anything at all,” by George Klein. Klein to the author, October 28, 1986. Translation from the Swedish by Margareta Feller, pp. 3–4.
CHAPTER 4
1. MIT Vol. II, p. 8.
2. Der Polizeipräsident in Berlin, September 28, 1931 (LSP 1/21).
3. MIT Vol. II, p. 8.
4. Berliner Adressbuch 1920, Fiche 7, p. 652, col. 3, Frankel. Lady Charlotte Simon interview, May 27, 1986.
5. Polizeiliche Abmeldung, February 1, 1920. Each time Szilard moved, he dutifully reported old and new addresses to the police and tucked the receipts in his suitcase (LSP 1/24).
6. PIA 638 fond-1/1920-IV-13-2096, Institute of the History of the Party. Attila Pók to the author, August 8, 1986.
7. James Franck, who reported this anecdote to Michael Polanyi, thought well of Szilard. The incident is reported in Polanyi to Franck, May 18, 1961 (MPP). See also Polanyi’s oral-history interview, February 15, 1962, p. 8 (AIP).
8. “Abgangszeugnis” September 28, 1926 (LSP 1/12).
9. Eugene Wigner interview, October 12, 1984.
10. Wigner/Szanton “Recollections” ms., pp. 132ff. Andre Gabor to Bela Silard, March 13, 1984 (BSP).
11. MIT Vol. II, p. 9.
12. Ibid.
13. MIT Vol. II, pp. 10–11.
14. Ehrenberg, “Maxwell’s Demon.” pp. 103–10.
15. James Clerk Maxwell, Theory of Heat (London: Longmans, Grun and Co., 1871) p. 328.
16. Carl Eckart, MIT Vol. I, p. 31.
17. N. Katherine Hayles, “The Information Perspective in Literature and Science: Chaos or Order?” September 23, 1985, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
18. “Leo Szilard Biographical Notes.” RG 6876, p. 1 (RAC). See also LSP 2/9.
19. Published as “Uber die Ausdehnung der phänomenologischen Thermodynamik auf die Schwankungserscheinungen” in Zeitschrift für Physik, 32, pp. 753–88 (1925). Translated in MIT Vol. I, pp. 70–102. My thanks to Gene Dannon for this information.
20. Szilard also carried this idea further than the mathematicians of the 1920s by showing that under certain conditions the only probability distribution with a single scalar sufficient statistic is the distribution devised in the nineteenth century by Yale mathematician Josiah Willard Gibbs. And, in creating his own application of sufficiency, Szilard anticipated by decades the simultaneous and independent papers of G. Darmois, B. O. Keepman, and E. J. G. Pitman. My thanks to Paul Penniman for research on this point.
21. Maurice Fox interview, May 24, 1988.
22. Published in 1929 as “Uber die Entropieverminderung in einem thermodynamischen System bei Eingriffen intelligenter Wesen,” in Zeitschrift für Physik, 53, pp. 840–56 (1929). MIT Vol. I. German text pp. 103–19; English, pp. 120–29.
According to Carl Eckart, Szilard said he wrote this paper about six months after finishing his thesis. See MIT Vol. I, p. 32.
23. MIT Vol. I, p. 121.
24. Ehrenberg, p. 109. For a different translation, see MIT Vol. I, p. 125.
25. “Leo Szilard’s Influence on Physics,” Essay dated June 13, 1964 (JSP 400/3).
26. Translation from the von Laue and Planck review of Szilard’s Habilitationsschrift by Maria Luise Wagner. Original in Gutachten zum Habilitationsgesuch Dr. L. Szilard’s” dated December 11 and 22, 1926, by von Laue and Planck (LSP 1/3). Zeitschrift für Physik 53, p. 840 (1929). See MIT Vol. I, pp. 103ff.
27. See Eckart in MIT Vol. I, p. 32; Ehrenberg, p. 109. On February 21, 1952, Karl Darrow, secretary of the American Physical Society (APS), wrote to Szilard inviting him to speak at a symposium on “Entropy and Information” for the May 1–2 APS meeting in Washington. Szilard replied on the twenty-seventh: “All I could do is to present—as an introduction to the topic—the original considerations which I published in 1927. I have not done any further work in the field since I wrote this one paper” (LSP 4/10).
28. Lazislas Bihaly interview, May 25, 1986.
29. Eckart, June 13, 1964, p. 3 (JSP 400/3). Philip Marcus interview, December 3, 1986.
30. Speech on “Education” at Brandeis University, October 23, 1953 (LSP 42/20).
31. Eckart essay, June 13, 1964, p. 1 (JSP 400/3).
CHAPTER 5
1. Alice (Eppinger) Danos interview, September 4, 1986.
2. Alice Danos interview, June 10, 1986.
3. Alice Danos interview, September 4, 1986.
4. Alice Danos remembers that this decisive visit occurred in August 1924, but it may have been in March 1925, another time that Szilard returned to Budapest. Alice Danos interviews, June 10 and September 4, 1986.
5. By this Szilard meant that, unlike the queen or drone, he had no sex life; he only worked. Alice Danos interviews, June 10 and September 4, 1986, and July 16, 1987.
6. For details on this and later moves, see Polizeiliche Abmeldung certificates (LSP 1/24).
7. Leona Steiner Wolf to Bela Silard, 1988.
8. The widow of Jacob A. Philipsborn is listed in the Berliner Adressbuch for 1925, Fiche 53.
9. Gerda Philipsborn to Albert Einstein, February 3, 1929; from 59 Brixton Hill, Norton House, London (AEP/B 46 094).
10. Szilard to Albert Einstein, March 22, 1930 (AEP/B 35 586 1 + 2, 35 587 1–3).
11. Szilard to Albert Einstein, April 1, 1930 (AEP/B 35 588).
12. Gerda Philipsborn, April 11, 1932. Polizeiliche Abmeldung (LSP 1/24).
13. Szilard to Eugene Wigner, October 8, 1932, address care of Philipsborn, Berlin W. 30, Motzstrasse 58 (LSP 21/4).
14. Eugene Wigner to Michael Polanyi, probably 1933, on United States Lines stationery (MPP). Bela Silard translation. The German science historian Horst Melcher suggested in an October 20, 1987, interview that Gerda Philipsborn’s London address was that of her brother. Gerda Philipsborn is buried at Jamia Millia Islamia (National Islamic University) near Delhi, where a daycare center is named in her honor. The university was founded by Dr. Zakir Hussein, a noted educator who served as India’s president from 1967 until his death in 1969. He first befriended Ms. Philipsborn in Berlin in the 1920s.
15. Livret d’Etudiant (University de Lausanne) delivré à Mlle. Gertrud Weiss; Exmatricule 28 Juin 1929 (EWP).
16. Details of Trude’s move to Vevey and Berlin are contained in a letter by Frances Racker, her sister, to Bela Silard, February 6, 1985 (BSP). Additional details are contained in Trude’s student book for Berlin University (EWP).
17. Trude said years later that she had first met Szilard through the Polanyi family. See Gertrud Szilard to Freeman Dyson, September 10, 1980 (EWP). The dialogue with Claire Bauroff is based on a recollection by Trude Szilard, as told to Maurice Fox. Fox interview, November 12, 1985.
It is possible that Trude met Szilard through the Polanyis but turned to her Aunt Claire for advice on the translation fee, as I have reported here. It is also possible that Professor Schrecker or Claire Bauroff knew Szilard and made the first introduction.
&n
bsp; 18. Maurice Fox interview, November 12, 1985.
19. Eugene Wigner oral-history interview, November 21, 1963, p. 8 (AIP).
20. “Leo Szilard 1898–1964: A Biographical Memoir by Eugene P. Wigner,” Biographical Memoirs, Vol. XL (New York: Columbia University Press, for the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, 1969).
21. Eugene Wigner interview, October 12, 1984.
22. Wigner, Biographical Memoir.
23. Eugene Wigner oral-history interview, November 21, 1963, p. 8 (AIP). Eugene Wigner interview with Andrew Szanton, March 31, 1987.
24. Wigner, Biographical Memoir; Wigner to the author, January 16, 1984; Wigner interview with Alice K. Smith. March 15, 1960: Wigner interview. October 12, 1984.
25. Eugene Wigner interview with Andrew Szanton, March 31, 1987. Wigner, Symmetries and Reflections (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967), p. 259.
26. Eugene Wigner oral-history interview, November 30, 1966, p. 3 (AIP).
27. Eugene Wigner oral history, November 21, 1963, p. 10 (AIP). Another Hungarian friend who attended Einstein’s seminar was Albert Kornfeld (Albi Korodi).
28. Marschak to Michael Polanyi, July 8, 1973 (MPP). My thanks to William Scott, Polanyi’s biographer, for this citation and to economist Ira Kaminow for his historical analysis of this anecdote.
29. Hermann Mark interviews, October 28 and November 25, 1985.
30. Victor Weisskopf interview, December 16, 1985.
31. Hermann Mark interview, November 25, 1985.
32. Eva (Striker) Zeisel interview, August 19, 1985.
33. Suzannah Lessard, “The Present Moment,” a profile of Eva Zeisel, The New Yorker, April 13, 1987, p. 40.
34. Eva Zeisel interview, August 19, 1985. Hans Zeisel interview, February 25, 1987. Victor Weisskopf interview, December 16, 1985. Darkness at Noon was based on Eva’s own years in a Soviet prison, accused of plotting to kill Stalin and only released through the contacts of her uncles, Michael and Karl Polanyi.
CHAPTER 6
1. Eugene Wigner interviews, October 12, 1984, and March 5, 1986.
2. Wigner/Szanton “Recollections” ms, Chap. 5. This refers to interview notes prepared for The Recollections of Eugene P. Wigner as Told to Andrew Szanton (New York: Plenum Publishing Corporation, 1992).
3. Theodore von Laue to the author, November 18, 1985.
4. Stanley Goldberg, “Albert Einstein and the Creative Act: The Case of Special Relativity,” Chap. 9 in Springs of Scientific Creativity, eds. Aris, Davis, and Stuewer (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), p. 237.
5. Hermann Mark interview, October 28, 1985. Albert Kornfeld interview, June 10, 1986. Lazislas Bihaly interview, May 25, 1986. In a 1940 interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Einstein recalled that in the early 1920s he saw Szilard almost every day. See November 8, 1940, FBI Report, No. 77-153 EMR (LSP 95/9).
6. Esther Salaman, “A Talk with Einstein,” The Listener, September 8, 1955. Clark, 1972, p. 37.
7. Wigner/Szanton “Recollections” ms, Chap. 9.
8. Named for American physicist Arthur Holly Compton. For making this discovery in 1923, Compton shared the 1927 Nobel Prize in physics with C. T. R. Wilson. Szilard would later work with Compton at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory, part of the US Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bombs.
9. Hermann Mark to Bela Silard, June 26, 1984. Mark interview with Alice K. Smith, April 13, 1960.
10. Szilard’s “Book” manuscript, beginning “Apology (in lieu of a foreword)” (LSP 40/4). See also Bronowski, The Ascent of Man (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973), p. 254, and Szilard to Einstein, January 18, 1924 (AEP).
11. Lazislas Bihaly interview, May 25, 1986.
12. MIT Vol. II, p. 12.
13. The New York Times, April 25, 1929. Clark, 1972, p. 37.
14. Clark, pp. 37–38.
15. See, for example, Einstein’s September 15, 1928, letter to Szilard about reading a letter by Spinoza (AEP/P Box 46/33–271).
16. For details of the Szilard-Einstein patent applications, see MIT Vol. I, pp. 540–42.
17. Einstein to H. N. Brailsford, April 24, 1930. C. Eichhorn translation (LSP 7/27).
18. Szilard to Einstein, June 30, 1931 (LSP 7/27).
19. See Szilard to Wigner, October 8, 1932 (LSP 21/4).
20. Szilard to Einstein, July 23, 1931 (AEP/P Box 49/35-600-1 and 2).
21. Bela Silard translation (AEP/B 21 441–1). Founded in 1930, the Institute for Advanced Study was then headed by its first director, Abraham Flexner. Rudolph Ladenburg, a physicist whom Polanyi and Szilard knew in Berlin, was then teaching at Princeton.
22. Einstein to Polanyi, October 19, 1932 (AEP/B 21 442).
23. Szilard moved into Harnack House on October 23, 1932 as Polanyi’s guest, living in the Müller Zimmer for visiting scholars. “Wohngaste des Harnack- Hauses in Oktober 1932,” in the series “KWG Generalverwaltung 2513 Harnack-Haus Gastelisten 23.7.1930–1938,” is in the Archive of the Max Planck Institute in Berlin-Dahlem.
24. See Szilard to Einstein, November 10, 19, and 24, 1931 (AEP).
CHAPTER 7
1. Polizeiliche Abmeldung, September 12, 1922. The address, between Mark-graftenstrasse and Jerusalemerstrasse, is now occupied by the Axel Springer building, in a neighborhood once bisected by the Berlin Wall. For records of this and other moves, see (LSP 1/24).
2. Polanyi to Professor Lorenz, October 16, 1922 (MPP), Bela Silard translation. My thanks to William Scott for sharing this letter. The Professor Stern mentioned is undoubtedly Otto Stern, recipient of the 1943 Nobel Prize in physics.
3. “Leo Szilard’s Influence on Physics” by Carl Eckart, June 13, 1964 (JSP 400/3). Von Laue, Szilard, and Schrödinger would teach “Discussion of New Work in Theoretical Physics” at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry in the winter semester, 1930–31. Universität Berlin, Vorlesungsverzeichnis Wintersemester 1930–31, p. 55. Von Neumann’s seminars begin in 1927.
4. Schrödinger to Donnan, August 26, 1933 (LSP 17/12).
5. Occupation began on January 11, 1923.
6. Mark to Bela Silard, June 26, 1984. Mark interviews, October 28 and November 25, 1985. Mark interview with Alice K. Smith, April 13, 1960. Mark’s undated “Data on Meetings with Leo Szilard,” written for the author in 1985.
7. See MIT Vol. I, p. 697.
8. Technische Hochschule Berlin issued “Matrikel Nr. 32770” on May 30, 1923, for acceptance, valid until March 31, 1927 (LSP 1/17).
9. Szilard to Einstein, November 1, 1926 (AEP). Szilard to Ortvay, File K785/538, Hungarian Academy of Sciences library, Budapest.
10. “A Simple Attempt to Find a Selective Effect in the Scattering of Roentgen Rays,” Zeitschrift für Physik, 33, p. 688 (1925); and “The Polarization of Roentgen Rays by Reflection from Crystals,” Zeitschrift für Physik, 35, p. 743 (1926).
11. Roland Detre interview, October 1, 1986.
12. Wigner/Szanton, “Recollections” ms. notes.
13. Eva Zeisel interview, August 19, 1985.
14. Dennis Gabor to Alfred Rosenfeld, May 30, 1960 (LSP).
15. “Discoveries and Their Uses,” a 1978 talk by Dorothy C. Hodgkin, p. 4. Hodgkin places this conversation in 1928; Gabor, in a 1960 letter to Rosenfeld, places it in 1927.
“Dennis Gabor,” p. 133, in T. E. Allibone’s Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 26 (1980): 107–47. Gabor to Alfred Rosenfeld, May 30, 1960. Gabor to Szilard, July 13, 1961 (LSP 8/23).
Andre Gabor to Bela Silard, March 13, 1984. T. E. Allibone to Bela Silard, March 14, 1984.
“Dennis Gabor: A Biographical Memorial Lecture,” by T. E. Allibone. Israel Journal of Technology, Vol. 18, 1980, pp. 201–208, see especially pp. 202–203. Oration by Professor Le Poole at Delft, 1971; quoted in Dennis Gabor, p. 133.
16. MIT Vol. I, pp. 527 and 707.
17. Dennis Gabor to Alfred Rosenfeld, May 30, 1960 (LSP).
18. Roland Detre�
��s “Family Recollections,” written for the author in September 1986, pp. 3–4. When Leo heard that Bela planned to marry his friend Elizabeth, he was more tolerant. “I am opposed to marriage,” he said, “but in your case I make an exception.”
19. Roland Detre interview, October 1, 1986.
20. MIT Vol. II, pp. 23ff; Szilard’s letter to Peter Odegard, January 10, 1949, with a draft for the advisory committee members of the new Ford Foundation, included his thoughts on alternative forms of democratic government and recalled his idea for the Bund (LSP 8/14, 14/23, 34/15, and 68/3).
21. Enclosure in Szilard to Odegard, January 10, 1949 (LSP 14/23).
22. Szilard to Michael Polanyi (MPP 2/5).
23. MIT Vol. II, p. 25.
24. “FWU zu Berlin Verzeichnis der Vorlesungen, Wintersemester 1929–30,” p. 52.
25. MIT Vol. II, p. 13. Szilard may have recalled meetings for the Young Plan. Germany signed on August 1929, and the plan was ratified in March 1930. The plan established a new schedule that gave the Reich more favorable annual terms but prolonged payments until 1988.
26. MIT Vol. II, p. 24.
27. Ibid., p. 25.
28. Ibid., p. 29.
29. Ibid., p. 26.
30. Ibid., p. 28.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid., fn. 9. Szilard to Odegard, January 10, 1949, enclosure (LSP 14/23).
33. Szilard to Einstein, March 22, 1930 (AEP 21 434).
34. Brailsford to Einstein, March 31, 1930 (AEP 45 650).
35. Einstein to Brailsford, April 24, 1930, C. Eichorn translation (LSP 7/27).
36. Universität Berlin, Vorlesungsverzeichnis, 1930–31, pp. 5 and 55.
37. See Szilard’s curriculum vitae, stamped October 9, 1933 by the Academic Assistance Council (AAC SPSL Sect. 4, Drawer 9). In March 1930, Szilard and Rupp sent an article on “Beeinflussung ‘polarisierter’ Elektronenstrahlen durch Magnetfelder” to the science magazine Die Naturwissenschaften.
38. Universität Berlin, Vorlesungsverzeichnis, 1931, p. 54.
39. See MIT Vol. II, pp. 16–17.
40. MIT Vol. I, p. 528. See Szilard’s Curriculum Vitae of June 18, 1932, for details on his research. Rolf Wideröe interview, July 7, 1987.
41. MIT Vol. I, pp. 528 and 722. See also the 1953 note by W. B. Mann, The Cyclotron (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1953), p. 93, about Szilard’s ideas on frequency modulation and phase stability.
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