Who knows what Einstein might have intended to say to Lenard following their intense public exchange? Had Lenard been willing to listen, what outcomes, if any, might have changed for both of them? Perhaps, none at all. Scientifically speaking, both Lenard and Einstein were set in their beliefs. But perhaps the bad personal feelings between the two could have been assuaged to some extent, and the distant repercussions might not have been so severe.
The confrontation imparted to Einstein a new resolve never again to allow his opponents to upset him so thoroughly. “I absolutely cannot understand,” he wrote, “that because of bad company I could lose myself in such deep humorlessness.” A few weeks later, Einstein made light of the Bad Nauheim episode in a letter to Paul Ehrenfest: “At Bad Nauheim, there was a cockfight, of sorts, about relativity. Lenard, in particular, figured as my opponent. To my knowledge, it didn’t come to any kind of manifestations of the sort you expected.”
By the phrase “any kind of manifestations of the sort you expected,” Einstein was specifically referencing anti-Semitism. However, that neither Einstein nor the lay press nor the Physikalische Zeitschrift, which covered the proceedings, made any reference to racist remarks does not mean that Lenard was free of prejudicial thinking. Lenard’s involvement in right-wing, nationalistic organizations, where such rhetoric was common, was already far advanced. Much later, in 1938, Lenard recalled his considerations during the Einsteindebatte:
I treated and judged the Jew as a proper Aryan person in this discussion according to the view of the time, and that was wrong. . . . It would not have been of use at the meeting of professors [to point out the flaws in Jewish thinking about science] because the men are also today still blind. Planck had presided over the discussion, which was preceded by three tedious presentations in favor of Einstein.
Lenard retreated to lick his wounds. He wrote of his sense of hurt and isolation in his perception that the majority of scientists in attendance had sided with Einstein. “The abolition of the ether is again proclaimed as a result of Nauheim. . . . Not one has laughed at this. I don’t know whether it would have been different had the abolition of air been proclaimed.” Among Lenard’s keepsakes commemorating the event was a clipping from the weekly newspaper Die Umschau, which focused on science and technology. An article attributed to a Mr. W. Weyl, by whose name Lenard had written the word “Jew,” reads, “One simply has to state, that Lenard has not understood the very meaning of the Einsteinian doctrine. Consequently, the adversaries did not find each other. The fight remained a fake fight without result.”
Despite what Lenard saw as an abandonment by many of his Aryan colleagues, the encounter with Einstein bolstered his resolve to persevere in his efforts to expose the fallacious nature of Einstein’s ideas. Lenard wrote, “My letters of this summer have brought together twelve gentlemen who are German enough to tackle the project to turn the miserable Berlin Institute of Physics [meaning Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics where Einstein was the director] into a German Institute of Physics.” Lenard’s meaning was clear. The academic facility that employed, housed, and protected the hated Einstein had adopted an un-German attitude. That would have to change. Among the twelve scientists listed by Lenard were Johannes Stark, to whom Lenard would eventually pass the mantle of Deutsche Physik; Wilhelm Wien; and the spectroscopist Gehrcke, who had followed Weyland on stage at the Philharmonic.
The “twelve gentlemen” had met during the conference and agreed that Einstein must be forced to revoke the statements he had made in the Berliner Tageblatt, which had been extremely insulting. They intended to press their case in public. They would embarrass Einstein in one of two ways: either by extracting a suitable apology or showing that his failure to acknowledge his error proved he lacked the breeding and nobility of the true German scientist.
What Einstein did next threw Lenard’s plans into disarray. On September 25, just a day after the session at Bad Nauheim, he issued an apology, of sorts, in the Berliner Tageblatt, the same despised “Jew paper” in which he had published his notorious “My Response.” The apology was by proxy, authored by Max Planck and Franz Himstedt, a well-known physicist from the University of Freiburg. Briefly, Planck recounted the conditions leading up to the stresses Einstein had experienced at the Philharmonic. A misunderstanding caused by Weyland’s remarks had led Einstein to lash out at Lenard, whom he erroneously believed to have been involved. The brief article continued, “Through the occasion of the recent meeting of sciences in Bad Nauheim, we have found that Mr. Lenard was put on the list of speakers [at the Philharmonic] without his will. Due to this fact, Mr. Einstein has authorized us to express his active regret that he directed his accusations in his article against his highly valued colleague, Mr. Lenard.”
Far from satisfying Lenard, the brief statement issued not by Einstein, himself, but by others on his behalf, only inflamed his resentment. The business with Einstein wasn’t over. He would bide his time. There would be other opportunities.
As it turned out, Einstein would provide some of the fodder for Lenard’s further attacks on his character. Two years earlier, in 1918, Einstein had suffered liver disease, manifested as gallstones and jaundice. A general deterioration of his health kept him bedridden for several months. Among his many visitors during his recovery was the well-known author and satirist, Alexander Moszkowski. Moszkowski convinced Einstein to collaborate with him in writing a book explaining his theory of relativity in simple language for a lay audience. Moszkowski was completing the finishing touches on Conversations with Einstein at the same time as Lenard and his minions were unleashing their barrage of criticism over Einstein’s self-promotion in the lay press.
At the insistent urging of his friends—among them, physicist Max Born and his playwright wife, Hedwig—Einstein considered the repercussions of his collaboration in publishing the book. The Borns worried that the widespread popular exposure the book might receive would give credence to Einstein’s critics’ claims that he much too often tooted his own horn. As the Borns were Jewish, they may also have worried on their own behalf that publication of the Moszkowski book might further arouse already rampant anti-Jewish sentiments.
In October 1920, Hedi Born wrote to Einstein,
You must withdraw the permission given to Moszkowski to publish the book Conversations with Einstein, and to be precise, immediately and by registered mail. Nor should it be allowed to appear abroad either. . . . That man doesn’t have the slightest inkling about the essence of your character. . . . If he understood, or even had a glimmer of respect and love for you, he would neither have written this book nor wrung this permission out of your good nature. [If you allow this book to be published], you will be quoted everywhere, your own jokes will be smirkingly flung back at you . . . couplets will be written, an entirely new, awful smear campaign will be let loose, not just in Germany, no, everywhere, and your revulsion of it will choke you. . . . If I did not know you, I would definitely believe it was vanity. For everyone, except for about four or five of your friends, this book would constitute your moral death sentence.
Persuaded that publication of Conversations with Einstein might be injurious at a time when seeking public adulation was considered a personal failing, Einstein withdrew his permission. Initially, Moszkowski agreed to halt publication, but the publisher overruled him. Money had been invested. It was too late to stop what was already well under way. With the publisher’s permission, Moszkowski and Einstein settled on cosmetic changes in an effort to distance Einstein from the book’s contents. The book was published with a new, more neutral title, Einstein the Seeker, and a foreword stating that Einstein had not read its contents. In addition, Moszkowski and the publisher deleted much of the material directly attributed to Einstein.
Einstein wrote the Borns a letter minimizing what he believed would be the consequences of the 1921 publication of Einstein the Seeker:
The whole business is a matter of indifference to me, along with the clamor and opi
nion of all persons. . . . By the way, M. [Moszkowski] really is preferable to me than Lenard and Wien. For the latter cause problems for the love of making a stink, and the former only in order to earn money (which really is more reasonable and better). I shall live through all that awaits me like an uninvolved spectator.
In Heidelberg, Lenard reflected upon the recent events. He would be neither “uninvolved” nor a “spectator.” The Moszkowski affair was further proof of the Working Society’s accusations. There was no doubting the Jew’s complicity. Nearly a year had passed since Einstein had publicly insulted him. He had not forgotten. Einstein remained unrepentant. Sitting in his office at the University of Heidelberg, Lenard pondered his next moves. In time, he would know what to do. After all, he had dealt with a similar situation before.
Chapter 6
A Missed Opportunity
Long before the attack on Einstein at the Berlin Philharmonic and the debate at Bad Nauheim, Lenard had focused his rancor on Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, the discoverer of X-rays. The conflict between the two men was based on many of the same elements as Lenard’s feud with Einstein, and it occurred for many of the same reasons. In Roentgen’s case, his serendipitous instant of discovery earned him a lifetime of Lenard’s envy.
Lenard had begun working with cathode ray tubes by 1893, when he joined the Karlsruhe laboratory of the famous German physicist, Heinrich Hertz. “Cathode rays are a phenomenon which occurs when electricity is discharged in a rarefied gas,” Lenard explained.
If an electric current is led through a glass tube containing rarefied gas, certain radiation phenomena appear both in the gas and around the metal wires, or poles, through which the current is carried. These phenomena change in form and nature if the gas is rarefied even further . . . rays are emitted from the negative pole, called the “cathode,” which are invisible to the naked eye but which can be observed through certain peculiar effects.
By 1894, when he was completing his scientific apprenticeship, Lenard had achieved a great deal, including improving upon the design of early cathode ray tubes developed by Hittorf and Crookes. Lenard’s innovation was to employ a thin plate of aluminum over an opening at the cathode end of the tube. This modification allowed Lenard to prove the existence of cathode rays outside the confines of the tube. The opening also made it easier than with earlier models to observe the properties of the rays. The self-named “Lenard tube” and Lenard’s investigations brought considerable recognition to the young scientist; after having served in a series of temporary positions for nearly a decade, he was offered a professorship at Breslau in 1894. The next year, he moved to Aachen; during his tenure there, events conspired to embitter Lenard over a major missed opportunity.
On the night of November 8, 1895, while others slept soundly in the university town of Wuerzburg, Germany, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen made a revolutionary discovery. Working in the laboratory below his living quarters, Roentgen set up his tube and prepared to continue a series of experiments on the properties of cathode rays. Roentgen was working that evening in Wuerzburg not because he was particularly industrious—although his subsequent actions show that he was—but because the outcomes of his investigations were best seen in total darkness. To maximize his chances of a successful evening of experimentation, Roentgen tightly drew heavy drapes over the windows and locked his laboratory door against the intrusion of unsuspecting visitors. He wrapped the cathode ray tube in heavy, black-painted cardboard so that the light originating from within the tube itself would not hinder his observations. Once all was prepared, Roentgen shut off the lights and allowed his eyes to accommodate to the darkness.
When Roentgen powered up the tube that evening, he was surprised to see a faint glimmer of light coming from an object leaning against a nearby wall. He confirmed the source of the glow: a piece of cardboard on which he had painted barium platinocyanide, a substance known to fluoresce when exposed to cathode rays. Given the popularity at the time of experimenting with vacuum tubes, it is highly likely that others, including Lenard, observed a similar effect during their investigations; but if they did, they must have either ignored it or erroneously attributed what they had seen to cathode rays. They committed the cardinal sin of science: they paid more attention to what they expected to see than what they actually saw. It was Roentgen who recognized the significance of his observation. The glowing plate was several feet away from the cathode ray tube. This was farther than cathode rays were known to travel. Dismissing cathode rays as the agent causing the fluorescence, Roentgen correctly deduced that he was witnessing a previously unreported phenomenon. What Roentgen experienced was the convergence of serendipity and a mind open to new possibilities, arriving at what we might today call an “aha moment.”
Roentgen must have considered immediately reporting his observations. However, if he had, he would have risked Lenard and other scientists making the connection and carrying out the critical experiments that would secure Roentgen’s place in scientific history. Instead, in Roentgen’s own words, “I didn’t think, I investigated.” He did so alone, staving off the very human urge to tell someone —anyone—about what he quickly recognized was a discovery of far-reaching importance. “I had spoken to no one about my work,” he later wrote. “To my wife [Anna Bertha, whom he called “Bertha”], I merely mentioned that I was working on something about which people would say when they found out about it, ‘Roentgen has surely gone crazy.’”
Soon, though, Bertha knew something was up. Several nights after his initial observation, Roentgen asked her to come to his laboratory, perhaps the first time he had ever made such an unusual request. From that first night of discovery, he’d begun to study the properties of the new rays. Perhaps his most amazing observation, which he now wished to further investigate, was that when he waved his hand between the tube and the barium platinocyanide–coated placard, he could see a ghostly image of what appeared to be the bones of his fingers and wrist.
When Bertha arrived, her husband seated her beside a table. Without explanation, he affixed his wife’s hand to a photographic plate. He then exposed her to what we now know to be an unconscionable fifteen minutes of unshielded irradiation. The resultant image—the first human radiograph—has become iconic. Clearly visible are the bones of Bertha’s hand, her wedding band encircling her marital finger. When her husband showed her the photograph, she is said to have uttered the words, “I have seen my death.”
Working alone and in continuing secrecy, Roentgen elicited much of what we know today about X-rays. His initial, December 28, 1895, publication, “On a New Kind of Rays,” was a remarkable reflection of the man himself, modest and reserved to the point of reticence. Without verbal embroidery, Roentgen let his readers decide for themselves the worth of his discovery. Some of the principle properties the publication detailed were that X-rays:
Are invisible to the naked eye;
Neither reflect nor refract in the manner of visible light;
Are unresponsive to magnetic fields;
Are absorbed in direct relationship to the density and thickness of the objects they encounter.
Roentgen’s report on the new rays was soon republished in English in Nature, Science, and Scientific American, but by then the word was out. On New Year’s Day 1896, Roentgen mailed ninety copies of his article to well-known scientists and colleagues throughout Europe. In twelve of the missives, sent to those whom he felt would be the most supportive, he included a packet of nine photographs. Among them was the image of Bertha’s hand.
One of the recipients, Franz-Serafin Exner, had been a university classmate of Roentgen in Zurich and was now a professor of experimental physics in Vienna. Exner showed the photographs to a friend whose father was Ernst Lecher, the publisher of Die Presse, Vienna’s leading daily newspaper. Lecher knew a good story when he saw one. Realizing that he had a scoop, he literally stopped the presses, made room on the front page, and published the story of Roentgen’s findings the very next day under the headline �
�A Sensational Discovery.” With remarkable prescience, Lecher predicted, “If we let our imaginations run freely . . . this could be of immeasurable help for the diagnosis of countless diseases.”
Viennese correspondents for other newspapers trumpeted the news to their home publications around the world. The press expanded upon Lecher’s prediction. London’s Daily Chronicle waxed, “A sensational discovery, which, if the reports are confirmed, is likely to be attended by imperial consequences for physical and medical science.” The Standard assured its readers, “There is no hoax or humbug in this matter.” Despite Roentgen’s preference for the term “X-rays,” to imply their mysterious nature, the press dubbed the emanations “Roentgen rays.” As later happened with Eddington’s verification of Einstein’s prediction about the bending of light, the public embraced both the discovery and the discoverer, seemingly overnight.
The initial response of the scientific community was tepid. However, skepticism vanished quickly following the events of January 23, 1896. That evening, the Physical and Medical Society of Wuerzburg held a symposium on the new rays in the main lecture hall of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute for Physics. At the conclusion of a comprehensive presentation of his observations, Roentgen called forward a well-known anatomist named Geheimrat Albert von Kolliker. As he had with his wife Bertha, Roentgen imaged the scientist’s hand. Imagine the amazement of those attending the evening’s events. They had not simply heard about the new rays but witnessed a most dramatic exhibition of their potential. On the platinocyanide plate, the image of von Kolliker’s hand is crisp and sharp. It appears broad and squat in comparison with Bertha’s. His fourth digit bears not one ring, as with Bertha’s hand, but two. Von Kolliker called for three cheers from the crowd and, to unanimous acclaim, immediately suggested that the new rays be named for their discoverer.
The Man Who Stalked Einstein Page 8