176 “The weakness of the theory”: The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, vol. 6, The Berlin Years: Writings, 1914–1917, trans. Alfred Engel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 396.
176 helpful to talk about the probabilities: The probabilities had to go in because it was the only way to deduce Planck’s already well-known radiation law. But that is what Einstein was convinced was just a stopgap. Bohr, however, welcomed the probability approach, because in his atomic theory, transition processes could never be understood classically.
177 “The real joke”: Folsing, p. 393.
180 “It was almost three o’clock”: Jagdish Mehra, ed.,The Golden Age of Theoretical Physics: Selected Essays (London: World Scientific, 2001), pp. 651–52.
181 “The Heisenberg-Born concepts”: Max Born, The Born-Einstein Letters, 1916–1955: Friendship, Politics and Physics in Uncertain Times, trans. Irene Born (1971; repr., London: Macmillan, 2005), p. 86.
181 “Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing”: Ibid., p. 88.
181 “a big quantum egg”: Folsing, p. 566.
16. Uncertainty of the Modern Age
184 “convinced of the causal dependence”: Pais, p. 467.
184 being an atheist was presumptuous: In 1936 Einstein wrote, “Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man” (Calaprice, p. 152). In 1941: “The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains . . . They are creatures who—in their grudge against traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’—cannot hear the music of the spheres” (Isaacson, p. 390).
184 “the guiding principle”: Einstein, “The Religious Spirit of Science,” p. 38.
185 “Einstein was not at all satisfied”: Werner Heisenberg, Encounters with Einstein: And Other Essays on People, Places, and Particles (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 113–14.
186 “A good joke”: Frank, p. 216.
186 “a veritable witches’ multiplication table”: Folsing, p. 580.
187 Schrödinger had worked out his equation: Schrödinger’s wife was always helpful when it came to advancing quantum physics, and a few months later she provided twin sisters to aid her husband’s concentration. “Nirvana is a state of pure blissful knowledge,” Schrödinger wrote. “. . . It has nothing to do with the individual” (Walter Moore, Schrödinger: Life and Thought [1989; repr. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015], p. 223).
189 “The more I think”: Ian Stewart, Why Beauty Is Truth (New York: Basic Books, 2007), p. 209.
189 “I got the idea of investigating”: Stefan Rozental, ed., Niels Bohr: His Life and Work as Seen by His Friends and Colleagues (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 1967), p. 106.
17. Arguing with the Dane
192 “an inner voice”: Born, p. 88.
193 “Not often in life”: Calaprice, p. 61.
196 “In the course of the day”: Heisenberg, p. 116.
196 “a perpetual motion machine”: Folsing, p. 589.
197 “I believe that the limitation”: Max Planck award ceremony, June 28, 1929, in Calaprice, p. 172.
197 “Carry on!”: French, p. 15.
198 now almost universally accepted: The formal experimental proof only came four years later, in 1933, with the American physicist Kenneth Bainbridge using a sensitive mass spectrometer. But few physicists really needed that: Einstein’s field equations that led to the light-bending prediction depended on E=mc2, and when Eddington had so spectacularly confirmed the theory in 1919, he had indirectly confirmed E=mc2.
201 “[Bohr] was extremely unhappy”: Pais, p. 446.
202 “he would not give up”: Rozental, p. 103.
203 “we could now be sure”: Heisenberg, p. 116.
18. Dispersions
212 “spectators and actors”: David Cassidy, Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1992), p. 545.
214 “German men and women!”: Mordecai Schreiber, Explaining the Holocaust: How and Why It Happened (Eugene, Ore.: Cascade Books, 2015), p. 57.
215 “Look around you”: Frank, p. 226.
19. Isolation in Princeton
216 “a quaint and ceremonious village”: Einstein to Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, November 20, 1933, quoted in Calaprice, p. 25.
217 “so upset by my illness”: Antonina Vallentin, The Drama of Albert Einstein (New York: Doubleday, 1954), p. 240.
217 “settled down splendidly”: Born, p. 128.
218 “I still do not believe”: Folsing, p. 704.
220 “You are a smart boy, Einstein”: Pais, p. 44.
222 “to have one wife at Oxford”: Moore, p. 298.
222 “You are my closest brother”: Ibid., p. 426.
224 “no self-respecting person”: Isaacson, p. 431.
225 “each time he does that”: Folsing, p. 127.
225 “it would be better not to work”: Ibid., p. 695.
225 “a petrified object”: Born, p. 178.
226 “Bohr was profoundly unhappy”: Folsing, p. 705.
20. The End
227 “I know what’s wrong”: Recalled by Einstein’s assistant Ernst Straus at a 1955 memorial talk, quoted in Calaprice, p. 192.
228 “I miss her more”: Interview with Hanna Loewy, an old family friend, 1991, quoted in Calaprice, p. 32.
228 “Einstein hardly referred”: “A Genius Finds Inspiration in the Music of Another,” New York Times, January 31, 2006.
229 “in an airship”: Isaacson, p. 511.
229 “The foundation of our friendship”: Hoffmann, p. 257.
230 “To think with fear”: Ibid., p. 261.
230 “It is tasteless to prolong”: Pais, p. 477.
230 “He joked with me”: Max Born, My Life: Recollections of a Nobel Laureate (New York: Scribner’s, 1978), p. 309.
230 “If only I had more mathematics”: Peter Michelmore, Einstein: Profile of the Man (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1962), p. 261.
Epilogue
232 “was always in a good mood”: French, p. 13.
234 starting in the 1990s: Two teams, announcing their results within weeks of each other in 1998, were awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work. To find that the universe was expanding ever faster was, as Saul Perlmutter, head of the California team, told National Public Radio interviewer Terry Gross, “a little bit like throwing [an] apple up in the air and seeing it blast off into space” (Fresh Air, NPR, November 14, 2011).
Would this have troubled Einstein? Probably not, for these findings didn’t necessarily require the conceptual approach of quantum mechanics; they could still, one might think, be explained in clear, causal terms.
In April 1917, Einstein had written to the Göttingen mathematician Felix Klein, “I don’t doubt that sooner or later [my theory] will have to give way to another that differs from it fundamentally, for reasons that today we cannot even imagine.
“I believe that this process of deepening theory has no limit.”
Appendix
238 “Einstein’s presentation”: Constance Reid, Hilbert (New York: Springer, 1996; orig. 1970), p. 112.
238 “objects of our perception”: H. Minkowski, “Space and Time,” in H. A. Lorentz, A. Einstein, H. Minkowski, and H. Weyl, The Principle of Relativity: A Collection of Original Memoirs on the Special and General Theory of Relativity (1923; repr., New York: Dover, 1952), p. 76.
240 “this most valiant piece”: Ibid., p. 76
242 “superfluous erudition”: Pais, p. 151.
247 “Where wast thou”: Book of Job, 38: 4-6.
Index
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
Page locators in italics indicate figures and photographs.
A
Abbott, Edwin, 39, 43–48, 45, 46, 51–52, 67
academic positions
> ETH (Zurich Polytechnic), 54–55, 56–58, 62–63, 69–70
German University in Prague, 58–62
post-university tutoring jobs, 17, 20, 24
pressure to publish preliminary findings, 24
Princeton years, x, xi–xiv, 210, 216–26
University of Bern, 37–38, 54–55
Adler, Friedrich, 55, 56–57
Anderson, Carl, 266 n165
Anderson, Marian, 216, 227
Annalen der Physik, 32–33
anti-Semitism
in Berlin, 128, 214–15
in Copenhagen, 213
in Göttingen, 213–14
in Italy, 14
in Munich, 6–7
at Zurich Polytechnic, 10
Arequipa, Peru, 137–38, 142
atom bomb, 32, 212
B
Bach, Einstein’s love of, 204–5
Bainbridge, Kenneth, 268 n198
ball on trampoline thought experiment, 73–78, 74, 76
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 204–5
Berlin
anti-Semitism in, 128, 214–15
curvature of space research, 73–78, 74, 76
move to, 70, 71–72
Bern
Patent Office job, 19–20, 21, 23–24
summer walks with friends, 23–25
Besso, Anna, 21, 229
Besso, Michele Angelo
death of, 111, 229
Einstein’s admiration of, 115, 229
Einstein’s friendship with, 9–10, 10, 11, 13, 16, 21, 24, 35
and Marić’s move back to Zurich, 71
Patent Office job, 21, 26, 54
as sounding board for Einstein, 61, 72, 78, 177, 186
Besso, Vero, 229, 232
Bohr, Niels
and anti-Semitism, 211, 213
with Einstein (late 1920s), 194
with Einstein (1930), 202
and Einstein’s refutation of Heisenberg’s research, xi, xiii, 194–203
Heisenberg’s research, 181, 189, 192–97
in Norway (1933), 173
in Princeton, 226
subatomic particles research, 173–75, 177, 267 n177
University of Copenhagen, 194, 211
World War II years, 211–12
Bolyai, János, 67
book burning, 214–15
Born, Max
correspondence with Einstein, 217
escape from Nazi Germany, 213–14
subatomic particles research, 177–78
The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky), 49, 228
Buber, Martin, 227
C
Carlsberg Foundation, 194
cartography and curved space geometry, 64, 65, 68
causality
and Einstein’s worldview, 176–77, 180–81, 182–84
and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, 192–93, 195, 203
celeritas (speed), 31
Cepheid variables, 138–41, 146, 149–50, 151–52
Chaplin, Charlie, 154, 155
Churchill, Winston, 212
City Lights (film), 154
classical music, 204–5, 228–29
computers, human, 136–37
conservation of energy and matter, 3–5, 25, 27–28, 35, 260–61 n25
Cortie, A. L., 98, 102
Cottingham, E. T., 97, 98, 99, 100
Crouch, Henry, 107
Curie, Marie, 25, 31–32, 54, 62
Curie, Pierre, 31–32, 54
curvature of light
closed room thought experiment, 85–88, 87
and testing of general relativity, 88–92, 89
See also Eddington, Arthur Stanley
curvature of space
ball on trampoline thought experiment, 73–78, 74, 76, 77–78, 85
cartography and curved space geometry, 64, 65, 68
distortion theory, 73–78, 74, 76
initial thoughts on unified theory, 39
mathematics of, 22, 64–68, 65, 66
skating on curved surface thought experiment, 65–66, 67, 75
See also general relativity
curvature of time, 238–41, 250–53
D
dark energy and dark matter, 234–35, 269 n234
Darwin, Charles, 4
de Broglie, Louis, 197
deck of cards experiment, perception of errors and feeling fatigue, 146–47, 265 n147
Degenhart, Joseph, 7
“Department of Theoretical Physics” at Patent Office, 24, 53
Dirac, Paul, 266 n165
distortion theory, curvature of space, 73–78, 74, 76
Doppler effect, 152
Dyson, Frank, 95–97, 98, 101, 103–4
E
Eddington, Arthur Stanley
c. 1914, 96
confirmation of Einstein’s general relatiivty, 103–5, 106, 107, 119
exemption from military service, 94–96
and Lemaître’s research, 164
solar eclipse surveys and curvature of light research, 93–94, 97–103, 113, 153, 206, 234, 263 n98
Ehrenfest, Paul, 194, 196, 203
Einstein, Albert
affairs, 113–15, 114, 162
childhood and youth, 5–15
death of, 230–31
early 1900s, 2, 42
early 1920s, 82
early 1930s, 155, 170
legacy of, 233–35, 269 n234
love of classical music and the violin, 8, 9, 21, 57–58, 163, 204–5, 217, 228–29
on nationalism as mental epidemic, 72
and Nazi Germany, 215, 224
post–Great War fame of, 106–11
Princeton years, x, xi–xiv, 210, 216–26
reaction to atom bomb detonation over Hiroshima, 32
on religion and atheism, 184, 267 n184
sailing on the Tümmler, 124
See also general relativity; quantum mechanics; special relativity
Einstein, Eduard
birth, 57–58
diagnosed with schizophrenia, 227–28
Einstein explains curvature of space-time to, 68
and parents’ divorce, 112–13, 162
Einstein, Hans Albert
birth, 22
and Elsa Lowenthal, 163
hydraulic engineering career, 222
with parents c. 1904, 42
and parents’ divorce, 112–13, 162
visits Einstein at Princeton Hospital, 230
in Zurich, 57–58
Einstein, Hermann, 6–7, 14, 17, 26
Einstein, Jakob, 6–7
Einstein, Maja
on Einstein’s ability to concentrate, 52–53
Einstein’s relationship with, xii, 7, 12, 17, 21, 22, 26, 228
in Princeton, 228
on reception of Einstein’s 1905 articles, 34–35
skepticism of, 27
University of Bern lectures, 54
Einstein, Pauline, 6–7, 8, 17–18, 260 n21
electrons
Einstein’s work on laser dynamics, 175–76, 180
electron microscopy and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, 189–90
equations describing, 266 n165
See also quantum mechanics
E = mc2
and certainty in the universe, 205
publication of paper on, 33, 38
and special relativity, 35
and transformation of mass into energy, 31, 32–33, 220
universal acceptance of, 198, 268 n198
energy and mass
dark energy and dark matter, 234–35
interlinked nature of, 28, 29–31, 32–33
and realm of matter, 25
Victorian-era scientific understanding of, 3–5, 25, 27–28, 35, 260–61 n25
the Enlightenment, 5–6
ETH (Zurich Polytechnic)
anti-Semitism at, 10
teaching and research at, 54–55, 56–58, 62–63, 69–70
events and space-time
&nbs
p; curvature of time, 239–42
intervals between events, 242–43
expanding universe
E = mc2 and certainty in the universe, 205
expanding balloon analogy, 159–62, 160
Hubble’s research, 148–54, 156–57
Lemaître’s research, 144–47
experimental evidence
Einstein’s reliance on, 198–99
general relativity and evolution of theoretical physics, xiii–xiv, 165–67
observational democracy of Einstein’s thought experiments, 86–87
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