Walter Isaacson Great Innovators e-book boxed set

by Walter Isaacson

  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 Einstein 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, 1
945, 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.

  6. Einstein realized there was no lasting “secret” of the bomb to protect. As he said later, “America has temporary superiority in armament, but it is certain that we have no lasting secret. What nature tells one group of men, she will tell in time to any other group.” Einstein, “The Real Problem Is in the Hearts of Men,”New York Times Magazine , June 23, 1946.

  7. Einstein, remarks at the Nobel Prize dinner, Hotel Astor, Dec. 10, 1945, in Einstein 1954, 115.

  8. Einstein, ECAS fund-raising telegram, May 23, 1946. Material relating to this is in folder 40-11 of the Einstein archives. The history and archives of the ECAS can be found through www.aip.org/history/ead/chicago_ecas/20010108_content.html#top.

  9. Einstein, ECAS letter, Jan. 22, 1947, AEA 40-606; Sayen, 213.

  10. Newsweek , Mar. 10, 1947.

  11. Richard Present to Einstein, Jan. 30, 1946, AEA 57-147.

  12. Einstein to Dr. J. J. Nickson, May 23, 1946, AEA 57-150; Einstein to Louis B. Mayer, June 24, 1946, AEA 57-152.

  13. Louis B. Mayer to Einstein, July 18, 1946, AEA 57-153; James McGuinness to Louis B. Mayer, July 16, 1946, AEA 57-154.

  14. Sam Marx to Einstein, July 1, 1946, AEA 57-155; Einstein to Sam Marx, July 8, 1946, AEA 57-156; Sam Marx to Einstein, July 16, 1946, AEA 57-158.

  15. Einstein to Sam Marx, July 19, 1946, AEA 57-162; Leó Szilárd telegram to Einstein, and Einstein note on reverse, July 27, 1946, AEA 57-163, 57-164.

  16. Bosley Crowther, “Atomic Bomb Film Starts,”New York Times , Feb. 21, 1947.

  17. William Golden to George Marshall, June 9, 1947, Foreign Relations of the U.S.; Sayen, 196.

  18. Halsman’s quote from Einstein, recounted by Halsman’s widow, is in Time’s Person of the Century issue, Dec. 31, 1999, which has the portrait he took (shown on p. 487) as the cover.

  19. Einstein comment on the animated antiwar film, Where Will You Hide?, May 1948, AEA 28-817.

  20. Einstein interview with Alfred Werner, Liberal Judaism , Apr.–May 1949.

  21. Norman Cousins, “As 1960 Sees Us,”Saturday Review , Aug. 5, 1950; Einstein to Norman Cousins, Aug. 2, 1950, AEA 49-453. (A weekly magazine is actually published one week earlier than it is dated.)

  22. Einstein talk (via radio) to the Jewish Council for Russian War Relief, Oct. 25, 1942, AEA 28-571. See also, among many examples, Einstein unsent message regarding the May-Johnson Bill, Jan. 1946; in Nathan and Norden, 342; broadcast interview, July 17, 1947, in Nathan and Norden, 418.

  23. “Rankin Denies Einstein A-Bomb Role,” United Press, Feb. 14, 1950.

  24. Einstein to Sidney Hook, Apr. 3, 1948, AEA 58-300; Sidney Hook, “My Running Debate with Einstein,”Commentary (July 1982).

  25. Einstein to Sidney Hook, May 16, 1950, AEA 59-1018.

  26. “Dr. Einstein’s Mistaken Notions,” in New Times (Moscow), Nov. 1947, in Nathan and Norden, 443, and Einstein 1954, 134.

  27. Einstein, Reply to the Russian Scientists, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (the publication of the Emergency Committee that he chaired), Feb. 1948, in Einstein 1954, 135; “Einstein Hits Soviet Scientists for Opposing World Government,”New York Times , Jan. 30, 1948.

  28. Einstein, “Atomic War or Peace,” part 2, Atlantic Monthly , Nov. 1947.

  29. Einstein to Henry Usborne, Jan. 9, 1948, AEA 58-922.

  30. Einstein to James Allen, Dec. 22, 1949, AEA 57-620.

  31. Otto Nathan contributed to this phenomenon with the 1960 book of excerpts he coedited from Einstein’s political writings, Einstein on Peace. Nathan, as the coexecutor with Helen Dukas of Einstein’s literary estate, had a lot of influence over what was published early on. He was a committed socialist and pacifist. His collection is valuable, but in searching through the full Einstein archives, it becomes noticeable that he tended to leave out some material in which Einstein was critical of Russia or of radical pacifism. David E. Rowe and Robert Schulmann, in their own anthology of Einstein’s political writings published in 2007, Einstein’s Political World , provide a counterbalance. They stress that Einstein “was not tempted to give up free enterprise in favor of a rigidly planned economy, least of all at the price of basic freedoms,” and they also emphasize the realistic and practical nature of Einstein’s evolution away from pure pacifism.

  32. Einstein to Arthur Squires and Cuthbert Daniel, Dec. 15, 1947, AEA 58-89.

  33. Einstein to Roy Kepler, Aug. 8, 1948, AEA 58-969.

  34. Einstein to John Dudzik, Mar. 8, 1948, AEA 58-108. See also Einstein to A. Amery, June 12, 1950, AEA 59-95: “However much I may believe in the necessity of socialism, it will not solve the problem of international security.”

  35. “Poles Issue Message by Einstein: He Reveals Quite Different Text,”New York Times , Aug. 29, 1948; Einstein to Julian Huxley, Sept. 14, 1948, AEA 58-700; Nathan and Norden, 493.

  36. Einstein to A. J. Muste, Jan. 30, 1950, AEA 60- 636.

  37. Today with Mrs. Roosevelt, NBC, Jan. 12, 1950, www.cine-holocaust.de/cgibin/gdq?efw00fbw002802.gd;New York Post , Feb. 13, 1950.

  38. D. M. Ladd to J. Edgar Hoover, Feb. 15, 1950, and V. P. Keay to H. B. Fletcher, Feb. 13, 1950, both in Einstein’s FBI files, box 1a, foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/einstein.htm. Fred Jerome’s book The Einstein File offers an analysis. Jerome says that when making Einstein the Person of the Century, Time refrained from noting that he was a socialist: “As if the executives at Time decided to go so far but no farther, their article makes no mention of Einstein’s socialist convictions.” As the person who was the magazine’s managing editor then, I can attest that the omission may indeed have been a lapse on our part, but it was not the result of a policy decision.

  39. Gen. John Weckerling to J. Edgar Hoover, July 31, 1950, Einstein FBI files, box 2a.

  40. See foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/einstein.htm. Herb Romerstein and Eric Breindel in The Venona Secrets (New York: Regnery, 2000), an attack on Soviet espionage based on the “Venona” secret cables sent by Russian agents in the United States, have a section called “Duping Albert Einstein” (p. 398). It says that he was regularly willing to be listed as the “honorary chairman” of a variety of groups that were fronts for pro-Soviet agendas, but the authors say there is no evidence that he ever went to communist meetings or did anything other than lend his name to various worthy-sounding organizations, with names like “Workers International Relief,” that occasionally were part of the “front apparatus” of international Comintern leaders.

  41. Marjorie Bishop,“Our Neighbors on Eighth Street,” and Maria Turbow Lampard, introduction, in Sergei Konenkov, The Uncommon Vision (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000), 52–54, 192–195.

  42. Pavel Sudoplatov, Special Tasks , updated ed. (Boston: Back Bay, 1995), appendix 8, p. 493; Jerome, 260, 283; Sotheby’s catalogue, June 26, 1988; Robin Pogrebin, “Love Letters by Einstein at Auction,”New York Times , June 1, 1998. The role of Konenkova has been confirmed by other sources.

  43. Einstein to Margarita Konenkova, Nov. 27, 1945, June 1, 1946, uncatalogued.

  44. Einstein, “Why Socialism?,
”Monthly Review , May 1949, reprinted in Einstein 1954, 151.

  45. Princeton Herald , Sept. 25, 1942, in Sayen, 219.

  46. Einstein, “The Negro Question,”Pageant , Jan. 1946, in Einstein 1950a, 132.

  47. Jerome, 71; Jerome and Taylor, 88–91; “Einstein Is Honored by Lincoln University,”New York Times , May 4, 1946.

  48. Einstein,“To the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto,” 1944, in Einstein 1950a, 265.

  49. Einstein to James Franck, Dec. 6, 1945, AEA 11-60; Einstein to James Franck, Dec. 30, 1945, AEA 11-64.

  50. Einstein to Verlag Vieweg, Mar. 25, 1947, AEA 42-172; Einstein to Otto Hahn, Jan. 28, 1949, AEA 12-72.

  51. Brian 1996, 340; Milton Wexler to Einstein, Sept. 17, 1944, AEA 55-48; Roberto Einstein (cousin) to Einstein, Nov. 27, 1944, AEA 55-49.

  52. Einstein to Clara Jacobson, May 7, 1945, AEA 56-900.

  53. Sayen, 219.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: LANDMARK

  1. Seelig 1956b, 71.

  2. Pais 1982, 473.

  3. See Bird and Sherwin.

  4. J. Robert Oppenheimer to Frank Oppenheimer, Jan. 11, 1935, in Alice Smith and Charles Weiner, eds., Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections (Cam-bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 190.

  5. Sayen, 225; J. Robert Oppenheimer,“On Albert Einstein,”New York Review of Books , Mar. 17, 1966.

  6. Jim Holt, “Time Bandits,”New Yorker , Feb. 28, 2005; Yourgrau 1999, 2005; Goldstein. Yourgrau 2005, 3, discusses the connections of incompleteness, relativity, and uncertainty to the zeitgeist. Holt’s piece explains the insights they shared.

  7. Goldstein, 232 n. 8, says that, alas, various research efforts have failed to discover the precise flaw Gödel thought he had discovered.

  8. Kurt Gödel, “Relativity and Idealistic Philosophy,” in Schilpp, 558.

  9. Yourgrau 2005, 116.

  10. Einstein, “Reply to Criticisms,” in Schilpp, 687–688.

  11. Einstein to Han Muehsam, June 15, 1942, AEA 38-337.

  12. Hoffmann 1972, 240.

  13. Einstein 1949b, 33.

  14. Einstein and Wolfgang Pauli, “Non-Existence of Regular Solutions of Relativistic Field Equations,” 1943.