Einstein

by Isaacson, Walter

  13. Arthur Fine has shown that Einstein’s own critique of quantum mechanics was not fully captured in the way that Podolsky wrote in the EPR paper, and especially in the way that Bohr and the “victors” described it. Don Howard has built on Fine’s work and emphasized the issues of “separability” and “locality.” See Howard 1990b.

  14. Einstein to Erwin Schrödinger, May 31, 1928, AEA 22-22; Fine, 18.

  15. Erwin Schrödinger to Einstein, June 7, 1935, AEA 22-45, and July 13, 1935, AEA 22-48.

  16. Einstein to Erwin Schrödinger, June 19, 1935, AEA 22-47.

  17. Erwin Schrödinger, “The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics,” third installment, Dec. 13, 1935, www.tu-harburg.de/rzt/rzt/it/QM/cat.html.

  18. More specifically, Schrödinger’s equation shows the rate of change over time of the mathematical formulation of the probabilities for the outcome of possible measurements made on a particle or system.

  19. Einstein to Erwin Schrödinger, June 19, 1935, AEA 22-47.

  20. I am grateful to Craig Copi and Douglas Stone for helping to compose this section.

  21. Einstein to Erwin Schrödinger, Aug. 8, 1935, AEA 22-49; Arthur Fine, “The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Argument in Quantum Theory,”Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-epr/. Note that Arthur Fine uncovered some of the Einstein-Schrödinger correspondence. Fine, chapter 3.

  22. Erwin Schrödinger to Einstein, Aug. 19, 1935, AEA 22-51.

  23. Erwin Schrödinger, “The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics,” Nov. 29, 1935, www.tu-harburg.de/rzt/rzt/it/QM/cat.html.

  24. Einstein to Erwin Schrödinger, Sept. 4, 1935, AEA 22-53. Schrödinger’s paper had not been published, but Schrödinger included its argument in his Aug. 19, 1935, letter to Einstein.

  25. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrodinger’s_cat.

  26. Einstein to Erwin Schrödinger, Dec. 22, 1950, AEA 22-174.

  27. David Bohm and Basil Huey, “Einstein and Non-locality in the Quantum Theory,” in Goldsmith et al., 47.

  28. John Stewart Bell, “On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox,”Physic 1, no. 1 (1964).

  29. Bernstein 1991, 20.

  30. For an explanation of how Bohm and Bell set up their analysis, see Greene 2004, 99–115; Bernstein 1991, 76.

  31. Bernstein 1991, 76, 84.

  32. New York Times , Dec. 27, 2005.

  33. New Scientist , Jan. 11, 2006.

  34. Greene 2004, 117.

  35. In the decoherent-histories formulation of quantum mechanics, the coarse graining is such that the histories don’t interfere with one another: if A and B are mutually exclusive histories, then the probability of A or B is the sum of the probabilities of A and of B as it should be. These “decoherent” histories form a tree-like structure, with each of the alternatives at one time branching out into alternatives at the next time, and so forth. In this theory, there is much less emphasis on measurement than in the Copenhagen version. Consider a piece of mica in which there are radioactive impurities emitting alpha particles. Each emitted alpha particle leaves a track in the mica. The track is real, and it makes little difference whether a physicist or other human being or a chinchilla or a cockroach comes along to look at it. What is important is that the track is correlated with the direction of emission of the alpha particle and could be used to measure the emission. Before the emission takes place, all directions are equally probable and contribute to a branching of histories. I am grateful to Murray Gell-Mann for his help with this section. See also Gell-Mann, 135–177; Murray Gell-Mann and James Hartle, “Quantum Mechanics in the Light of Quantum Cosmology,” in W. H. Zurek, ed., Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1990), 425–459, and “Equivalent Sets of Histories and Multiple Quasiclassical Realms,” May 1996, www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9404013. This view is derived from the many-worlds interpretation pioneered in 1957 by Hugh Everett.

  36. The literature on Einstein and realism is fascinating. This section relies on the works of Don Howard, Gerald Holton, Arthur I. Miller, and Jeroen van Dongen cited in the bibliography.

  Don Howard has argued that Einstein was never a true Machian nor a true realist, and that his philosophy of science did not change much over the years. “On my view, Einstein was never an ardent ‘Machian’ positivist, and he was never a scientific realist, at least not in the sense acquired by the term ‘scientific realist’ in later twentieth-century philosophical discourse. Einstein expected scientific theories to have the proper empirical credentials, but he was no positivist; and he expected scientific theories to give an account of physical reality, but he was no scientific realist. Moreover, in both respects his views remained more or less the same from the beginning to the end of his career.” Howard 2004.

  Gerald Holton, on the other side, argues that Einstein underwent “a pilgrimage from a philosophy of science in which sensationalism and empiricism were at the center, to one in which the basis was a rational realism ... For a scientist to change his philosophical beliefs so fundamentally is rare” (Holton 1973, 219, 245). See also Anton Zeilinger, “Einstein and Absolute Reality,” in Brockman, 123: “Instead of accepting only concepts that can be verified by observation, Einstein insisted on the existence of a reality prior to and independent of observation.”

  Arthur Fine’s The Shaky Game explores all sides of the issue. He develops for himself what he calls a “natural ontological attitude” that is neither realist nor antirealist, but instead “mediates between the two.” Of Einstein he says, “I think there is no backing away from the fact that Einstein’s so-called realism has a deeply empiricist core that makes it a ‘realism’ more nominal than real.” Fine, 130, 108.

  37. Einstein to Jerome Rothstein, May 22, 1950, AEA 22-54.

  38. Einstein to Donald Mackay, Apr. 26, 1948, AEA 17-9.

  39. Einstein 1949b, 11.

  40. Gerald Holton, “Mach, Einstein and the Search for Reality,” in Holton 1973, 245. Arthur I. Miller disagrees with some of Holton’s interpretation. He stresses that Einstein’s point was that for something to be real it should be measurable in principle, even if not actually measurable in real life, and he was content using thought experiments to “measure” something. Miller 1981, 186.

  41. Einstein 1949b, 81.

  42. Einstein to Max Born, comments on a paper, Mar. 18, 1948, in Born 2005, 161.

  43. Einstein, “The Fundamentals of Theoretical Physics,”Science , May 24, 1940; Einstein 1954, 334.

  44. For example, Arthur Fine argues, “Causality and observer-independence were primary features of Einstein’s realism, whereas a space/time representation was an important but secondary feature.” Fine, 103.

  45. Einstein, “Physics, Philosophy and Scientific Progress,”Journal of the International College of Surgeons 14 (1950), AEA 1-163; Fine, 98.

  46. Einstein, “Physics and Reality,”Journal of the Franklin Institute (Mar. 1936), in Einstein 1954, 292. Gerald Holton says that this is more properly translated: “The eternally incomprehensible thing about the world is its comprehensibility”; see Holton, “What Precisely Is Thinking?,” in French, 161.

  47. Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Mar. 30, 1952, in Solovine, 131 (not in AEA).

  48. Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Jan. 1, 1951, in Solovine, 119.

  49. Einstein to Max Born, Sept. 7, 1944, in Born 2005, 146, and AEA 8-207.

  50. Born 2005, 69. He put Einstein in the category of “conservative individuals who were unable to free their minds from the prevailing philosophical prejudices.”

  51. Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Apr. 10, 1938, in Solovine, 85.

  52. Einstein and Infeld, 296.

  53. Ibid., 241.

  54. Born 2005, 118, 122.

  55. Brian 1996, 289.

  56. Hoffmann 1972, 231.

  57. Regis, 35.

  58. Leopold Infeld, Quest (New York: Chelsea, 1980), 309.

  59. Brian 1996, 303.

  60. Infeld, introduction to the 1960 edition of E
instein and Infeld; Infeld, 112–114.

  61. Pais 1982, 23.

  62. Vladimir Pavlovich Vizgin, Unified Field Theories in the First Third of the 20th Century (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1994), 218. Matthew 19:6, King James Version: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

  63. Einstein to Max von Laue, Mar. 23, 1934, AEA 16-101.

  64. From Whitrow, xii: “Einstein agreed that the chance of success was very small but the attempt must be made. He himself had established his name; his position was assured, so he could afford to take the risk of failure. A young man with his way to make in the world could not afford to take a risk by which he might lose a great career, so Einstein felt that in this matter he had a duty.”

  65. Hoffmann 1972, 227.

  66. Arthur I. Miller, “A Thing of Beauty,”New Scientist , Feb. 4, 2006.

  67. Einstein to Maurice Solovine, June 27, 1938. See also Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Dec. 23, 1938, AEA 21-236: “I have come across a wonderful subject which I am studying enthusiastically with two young colleagues. It offers the possibility of destroying the statistical basis of physics, which I have always found intolerable. This extension of the general theory of relativity is of very great logical simplicity.”

  68. William Laurence, “Einstein in Vast New Theory Links Atoms and Stars in Unified System,”New York Times , July 5, 1935; William Laurence, “Einstein Sees Key to Universe Near,”New York Times , Mar. 14, 1939.

  69. Hoffmann 1972, 227; Bernstein 1991, 157.

  70. William Laurence, “Einstein Baffled by Cosmos Riddle,”New York Times , May 16, 1940.

  71. Fölsing, 704.

  72. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , Dec. 29, 1934.

  73. William Laurence, “Einstein Sees Key to Universe Near,”New York Times , Mar. 14, 1939.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE BOMB

  1. FBI interview with Einstein regarding Leó Szilárd, Nov. 1, 1940, obtained by Gene Dannen under the Freedom of Information Act, www.dannen.com/ein stein.html. It is ironic that the FBI had such an extensive and friendly interview with Einstein to check out Szilárd’s worthiness for a security clearance, because Einstein had been denied such a clearance himself. See also Gene Dannen, “The Einstein-Szilárd Refrigerators,”Scientific American (Jan. 1997).

  2. Recollections of Chuck Rothman, son of David Rothman, www.sff.net/peo ple/rothman/einstein.htm.

  3. Weart and Szilard 1978, 83–96; Brian 1996, 316.

  4. An authoritative narrative is in Rhodes, 304–308.

  5. See Kati Marton, The Great Escape: Nine Hungarians Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006).

  6. Leó Szilárd to Einstein, July 19, 1933, AEA 76-532.

  7. Some popular accounts suggest that Einstein merely signed a letter that Szilárd wrote and brought with him. Along these lines, Teller told the writer Ronald W. Clark in 1969 that Einstein had signed, with “very little comment,” a letter that Szilárd and Teller had brought that day. See Clark, 673. This is contradicted, however, by Szilárd’s own detailed description of that day and the notes of the conversation made by Teller that day. The notes and new draft letter in German as dictated by Einstein are in the Teller archives and reprinted in Nathan and Norden, 293. It is true that the letter dictated by Einstein was based on a draft Szilárd brought that day, but that was a translation of the one Einstein had dictated two weeks earlier. Some accounts, including occasional comments made later by Einstein himself, try to minimize his role and say he simply signed a letter that someone else wrote. In fact, even though Szilárd prompted and propelled the discussions, Einstein was fully involved in writing the letter that he alone signed.

  8. Einstein to Franklin Roosevelt, Aug. 2, 1939. The longer version is in the Franklin Roosevelt archives in Hyde Park, New York (with a copy in AEA 33-143), the shorter one in the Szilárd archives at the University of California, San Diego.

  9. Clark, 676; Einstein to Leó Szilárd, Aug. 2, 1939, AEA 39-465; Leó Szilárd to Einstein, Aug. 9, 1939, AEA 39-467; Leó Szilárd to Charles Lindbergh, Aug. 14, 1939, Szilárd papers, University of California, San Diego, box 12, folder 5.

  10. Charles Lindbergh, “America and European Wars,” speech, Sept. 15, 1939, www.charleslindbergh.com/pdf/9_15_39.pdf.

  11. Leó Szilárd to Einstein, Sept. 27, 1933, AEA 39-471. Lindbergh later did not recall getting any letters from Szilárd.

  12. Leó Szilárd to Einstein, Oct. 3, 1939, AEA 39-473.

  13. Moore, 268. The Napoleon tale is clearly one that Sachs or someone garbled, as Robert Fulton did in fact work on building ships for Napoleon, including a failed submarine; see Kirkpatrick Sale, The Fire of His Genius (New York: Free Press, 2001), 68–73.

  14. Sachs told this tale to a U.S. Senate special committee on atomic energy hearing, Nov. 27, 1945. It is recounted in most histories of the atom bomb, including Rhodes, 313–314.

  15. Franklin Roosevelt to Einstein, Oct. 19, 1939, AEA 33-192.

  16. Einstein to Alexander Sachs, Mar. 7, 1940, AEA 39-475.

  17. Einstein to Lyman Briggs, Apr. 25, 1940, AEA 39-484.

  18. Sherman Miles to J. Edgar Hoover, July 30, 1940, in the FBI files on Einstein, foia.fbi.gov/einstein/einstein1a.pdf. A good analysis and context for these files is Jerome.

  19. J. Edgar Hoover to Sherman Miles, Aug. 15, 1940.

  20. Einstein to Henri Barbusse, June 1, 1932, AEA 34-543. The FBI refers to this conference with a different translation of its name, the World Congress against War.

  21. Jerome, 28, 295 n. 6. The Miles note is on the copy in the National Archives but not the FBI files.

  22. Jerome, 40–42.

  23. Einstein, “This Is My America,” unpublished, summer 1944, AEA 72-758.

  24. “Einstein to Take Test,”New York Times , June 20, 1940; “Einstein Predicts Armed League,”New York Times , June 23, 1940.

  25. “Einstein Is Sworn as Citizen of U.S.,”New York Times , Oct. 2, 1940.

  26. Einstein, “This Is My America,” unpublished, summer 1944, AEA 72-758.

  27. Frank Aydelotte to Vannevar Bush, Dec. 19, 1941; Clark, 684.

  28. Vannevar Bush to Frank Aydelotte, Dec. 30, 1941.

  29. Pais 1982,12; George Gamow, “Reminiscence,” in French, 29; Fölsing, 715.

  30. Sayen, 150; Pais 1982, 147. The manuscripts were purchased by the Kansas City Life Insurance Co. and were subsequently donated to the Library of Congress.

  31. Einstein to Niels Bohr, Dec. 12, 1944, AEA 8-95.

  32. Clark, 698.

  33. Einstein to Otto Stern, Dec. 26, 1944, AEA 22-240; Clark, 699–700.

  34. Einstein to Franklin Roosevelt, Mar. 25, 1945, AEA 33-109.

  35. Sayen, 151.

  36. Time , July 1, 1946. The portrait was by the longtime cover artist for the magazine, Ernest Hamlin Baker.

  37. Newsweek , Mar. 10, 1947.

  38. Linus Pauling report of conversation, Nov. 16, 1954, in Calaprice, 185.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: ONE-WORLDER

  1. Brian 1996, 345; Helen Dukas to Alice Kahler, Aug. 8, 1945: “One of the young reporters who was a guest at the Sulzbergers from the New York Timescame over late at night ... Arthur Sulzberger also called constantly for a statement. But no dice.” Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Sr. told me that his father, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, and uncle David summered at Saranac Lake and knew Einstein.

  2. United Press interview, Sept. 14, 1945, reprinted in New York Times, Sept. 15, 1945.

  3. Einstein to J. Robert Oppenheimer (care of a post office box in Santa Fe near Los Alamos), Sept. 29, 1945, AEA 57-294; J. Robert Oppenheimer to Einstein, Oct. 10, 1945, AEA 57-296.

  4. When he realized that Oppenheimer had not written the statement he considered too timid, Einstein wrote to the scientists in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, who actually had. In the letter, he explained his thoughts about what powers a world government should and should not have. “There would be no immediate need for member nations to subordinate their own tariff and immigration legislation to the
authority of world government,” he said. “In fact, I believe the sole function of world government should be to have a monopoly over military power.” Einstein to John Balderston and other Oak Ridge scientists, Dec. 3, 1945, AEA 56-493.

  5. It is reprinted in Nathan and Norden, 347, and Einstein 1954, 118. See also Einstein, “The Way Out,” in One World or None, Federation of Atomic Scientists, 1946, www.fas.org/oneworld/index.html. The book is an important look at the ideas of scientists at the time—including Einstein, Oppenheimer, Szilárd, Wigner, and Bohr—on how to use world federalism to control nuclear arms.