Walter Isaacson Great Innovators e-book boxed set

by Walter Isaacson

  15. Einstein and Valentine Bargmann, “Bivector Fields,” 1944. He is sometimes referred to as Valentin, but in America he signed his name Valentine.

  16. Einstein to Erwin Schrödinger, Jan. 22, 1946, AEA 22-93.

  17. Erwin Schrödinger to Einstein, Feb. 19, 1946, AEA 22-94; Einstein to Erwin Schrödinger, Apr. 7, 1946, AEA 22-103; Einstein to Erwin Schrödinger, May 20, 1946, AEA 22-106; Einstein, “Generalized Theory of Gravitation,” 1948, with subsequent addenda.

  18. Einstein, The Meaning of Relativity , 1950 ed., appendix 2, revised again for the 1954 ed.; William Laurence, “New Theory Gives a Master Key to the Universe,”New York Times , Dec. 27, 1949; William Laurence, “Einstein Publishes His Master Theory: Long-Awaited Chapter to Relativity Volume Is Product of 30 Years of Labor; Revised at Last Minute,”New York Times , Feb. 15, 1950.

  19. Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Nov. 25, 1948, AEA 21-256; Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Mar. 28, 1949, AEA 21-260; Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Feb. 12, 1951, AEA 21-277.

  20. Tilman Sauer, “Dimensions of Einstein’s Unified Field Theory Program,” courtesy of the author; Hoffmann 1972, 239; I am grateful for the help of Sauer, who is doing research in Einstein’s late work on field theories.

  21. Whitrow, xii.

  22. Niels Bohr, “Discussion with Einstein,” in Schilpp, 199.

  23. Abraham Pais, in Rozental 1967, 225; Clark, 742.

  24. John Wheeler, “Memoir,” in French, 21; John Wheeler, “Mentor and Sounding Board,” in Brockman, 31; Einstein quoted in Johanna Fantova journal, Nov. 11, 1953. In letters to Besso in 1952, Einstein defended his stubbornness. He insisted that a complete description of nature would describe reality, or a “deterministic real state,” rather than merely describe observations. “The orthodox quantum theoreticians generally refuse to admit the notion of a real state (based on positivist considerations). One thus ends up with a situation that resembles that of the good Bishop Berkeley.” Einstein to Michele Besso, Sept. 10, 1952, AEA 7-412. A month later he noted that quantum theory declared that “laws don’t apply to things, but only to what observation informs us about things ... Now,I can’t accept that.” Einstein to Michele Besso, Oct. 8, 1952, AEA 7-414.

  25. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Dec. 22, 1946, AEA 75-845.

  26. Fölsing, 731; Highfield and Carter, 253; Brian 1996, 371; Einstein to Karl Zürcher, July 29, 1947.

  27. Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, Jan. 21, 1948, AEA 75-959.

  28. Einstein to Carl Seelig, Jan. 4, 1954, AEA 39-59; Fölsing, 731.

  29. Sayen, 221; Pais 1982, 475.

  30. Sarasota Tribune, Mar. 2, 1949, AEA 30-1097; Bucky, 131. Jeremy Bernstein writes, “Anyone who spent five minutes with Miss Dukas would understand what a lunatic accusation this is.” Bernstein 2001, 109.

  31. Hans Albert Einstein interview, in Whitrow, 22.

  32. “Trouble is brewing between Maja and Paul. They ought to divorce as well. Paul is supposedly having an affair and the marriage is quite in pieces. One shouldn’t wait too long (as I did) ... No mixed marriages are any good (Anna says: oh!).” Einstein to Michele Besso, Dec. 12, 1919. The half-joking reference to Anna was about Anna Winteler Besso, who was Michele Besso’s wife and Paul Winteler’s sister. The Wintelers were not Jewish; Besso and the Einsteins were.

  33. Highfield and Carter, 248.

  34. Einstein to Solovine, Nov. 25, 1948, AEA 21-256; Sayen, 134.

  35. Einstein to Lina Kocherthaler, July 27, 1951, AEA 38-303; Sayen, 231.

  36. “Einstein Repudiates Biography Written by His Ex-Son-in-Law,”New York Times , Aug. 5, 1944; Frieda Bucky, “You Have to Ask Forgiveness,”Jewish Quarterly (winter 1967–68), AEA 37-513.

  37. “Einstein Extolled by 300 Scientists,”New York Times , Mar. 20, 1949; Sayen, 227; Fölsing, 735.

  38. Einstein to Queen Mother Elisabeth of Belgium, Jan. 6, 1951, AEA 32-400; Sayen, 139.

  39. Einstein to Max Born, Apr. 12, 1949, AEA 8-223.

  40. “3,000 Hear Einstein at Seder Service,”New York Times , Apr. 18, 1938; Einstein, “Our Debt to Zionism,” in Einstein 1954, 190.

  41. “Einstein Condemns Rule in Palestine,”New York Times , Jan. 12, 1946; Sayen, 235–237; Stephen Wise to Einstein, Jan. 14, 1946, AEA 35-258; Einstein to Stephen Wise, Jan. 14, 1946, AEA 35-260.

  42. “Einstein Statement Assails Begin Party,”New York Times , Dec. 3, 1948; “Einstein Is Assailed by Menachim Begin,”New York Times , Dec. 7, 1948.

  43. Einstein to Hans Muehsam, Jan. 22, 1947, AEA 38-360, and Sept. 24, 1948, AEA 38-379.

  44. Einstein to Lina Kocherthaler, May 4, 1948, AEA 38-302.

  45. Dukas interview, in Sayen, 245; Abba Eban to Einstein, Nov. 17, 1952, AEA 41-84; Einstein to Abba Eban, Nov. 18, 1952, AEA 28-943.

  46. Einstein’s travails with Hebrew University are recounted in Parzen 1974. For his relationship with Brandeis, see Abram Sacher, Brandeis University (Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 1995), 22. The one place with which he had a great relationship was Yeshiva University. He was made the honorary chair of the fund-raising drive to build the College of Medicine there in 1952, and the following year allowed the medical college to be named after him. I am grateful to Edward Burns for providing information. See www.yu.edu/libraries/digital_library/einstein/panel10.html.

  47. Einstein to Maariv newspaper editor Azriel Carlebach, Nov. 21, 1952, AEA 41-93; Sayen, 247; Nathan and Norden, 574; Einstein to Joseph Scharl, Nov. 24, 1952, AEA 41-107.

  48. Yitzhak Navon, “On Einstein and the Presidency of Israel,” in Holton and Elkana, 295.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: RED SCARE

  1. Einstein to Queen Mother Elisabeth of Belgium, Jan. 6, 1951, AEA 32-400.

  2. Einstein to Leopold Infeld, Oct. 28, 1952, AEA 14-173; Einstein to Russian students in Berlin, Apr. 1, 1952, AEA 59-218.

  3. Einstein to T. E. Naiton, Oct. 9, 1952, AEA 60-664.

  4. Einstein to Judge Irving Kaufman, Dec. 23, 1952, AEA 41-547.

  5. Newark FBI Field Office to J. Edgar Hoover, Apr. 22, 1953, in Einstein FBI files, box 7.

  6. Einstein to Harry Truman, with fifteen lines of equations on the other side, Jan. 11, 1953, AEA 41-551.

  7. New York Times , Jan. 13, 1953.

  8. Marian Rawles to Einstein, Jan. 14, 1953, AEA 41-629; Charles Williams to Einstein, Jan. 17, 1953, AEA 41-651; Homer Greene to Einstein, Jan. 15, 1953, AEA 41-588; Joseph Heidt to Einstein, Jan. 13, 1953, AEA 41-589.

  9. Einstein to William Douglas, June 23, 1953, AEA 41-576; William Douglas to Einstein, June 30, 1953, AEA 41-577.

  10. Generosa Pope Jr. to Einstein, Jan. 15, 1953, AEA 41-625; Daniel James to Einstein, Jan. 14, 1953, AEA 41-614.

  11. Einstein to Daniel James, Jan. 15, 1953, AEA 60-696;New York Times , Jan. 22, 1953.

  12. Einstein, Acceptance of the Lord & Taylor Award, May 4, 1953, AEA 28-979. In a letter to Dick Kluger, then a student editor of The Daily Princetonian,he wrote: “As long as a person has not violated the ‘social contract’ nobody has the right to inquire about his or her convictions. If this principal is not followed free intellectual development is not possible.” Einstein to Dick Kluger, Sept. 17, 1953, in Kluger’s possession.

  13. Einstein to William Frauenglass, May 16, 1953, AEA 41-112; “Refuse to Testify Einstein Advises,”New York Times , June 12, 1953;Time , June 22, 1953.

  14. All of these editorials ran on June 13, 1953, except the Chicago editorial, which ran on June 15.

  15. Sam Epkin to Einstein, June 15, 1953, AEA 41-409; Victor Lasky to Einstein, June 1953, AEA 41-441; George Stringfellow to Einstein, June 15, 1953, AEA 41-470.

  16. New York Times , June 14, 1953.

  17. Bertrand Russell to New York Times, June 26, 1953; Einstein to Bertrand Russell, June 28, 1953, AEA 33-195.

  18. Abraham Flexner to Einstein, June 12, 1953, AEA 41-174; Shepherd Baum to Einstein, June 17, 1953, AEA 41-202.

  19. Richard Frauenglass to Einstein, June 20, 1953, AEA 41-181.

  20. Sarah Shadowitz, “Albert Sha
dowitz,”Globe and Mail (Toronto), May 26, 2004. The author is the subject’s daughter.

  21. Sayen, 273–276; Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Government Operations, “Testimony of Albert Shadowitz,” Dec. 14, 1953, and “Report on the Proceedings against Albert Shadowitz for Contempt of the Senate,” July 16, 1954; Albert Shadowitz to Einstein, Dec. 14, 1953, AEA 41-659; Einstein to Albert Shadowitz, Dec. 15, 1953, AEA 41-660. Shadowitz was cleared in July 1955, two years after his testimony, after the fall of McCarthy.

  22. Jerome and Taylor, 120–121.

  23. Bird and Sherwin, 133, 495.

  24. Ibid., 495.

  25. James Reston, “Dr. Oppenheimer Suspended by A.E.C. in Security Review,” New York Times, Apr. 13, 1954. On Sunday, Apr. 11, Joseph and Stewart Alsop, in their New York Herald Tribune column, had speculated that “leading physicists” were now a target of security investigations, but they did not mention Oppenheimer by name.

  26. Pais 1982, 11; Bird and Sherwin, 502–504.

  27. Johanna Fantova’s journal, June 3, 16, 17, 1954, in Calaprice, 359.

  28. Einstein to Herbert Lehman, May 19, 1954, AEA 6-236.

  29. Johanna Fantova’s journal, June 17, 1954, in Calaprice, 359.

  30. Einstein to Norman Thomas, Mar. 10, 1954, AEA 61-549; Einstein to W. Stern, Jan. 14, 1954, AEA 61-470. See also Einstein to Felix Arnold, Mar. 19,1954,AEA 59-118:“The current investigations are an incomparably greater danger to our society than those few communists in the country could ever be.”

  31. Johanna Fantova journal, Mar. 4, 1954, in Calaprice, 356; Einstein to Queen Mother Elisabeth of Belgium, Mar. 28, 1954, AEA 32-410.

  32. Theodore White, “U.S. Science,”The Reporter , Nov. 11, 1954. White went on to write The Making of the President series of books.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: THE END

  1. Johanna Fantova journal, Mar. 19, 1954, in Calaprice, 356.

  2. Einstein eulogy for Rudolf Ladenberg, Apr. 1, 1952, AEA 5-160.

  3. Einstein to Jakob Ehrat, May 12, 1952, AEA 59-554; Einstein to Ernesta Marangoni, Oct. 1, 1952, AEA 60-406; Einstein to Queen Mother Elisabeth of Belgium, Jan. 12, 1953, AEA 32-405.

  4. Einstein interview with Lili Foldes, The Etude , Jan. 1947; Calaprice, 150. Information about his repeated playing of this record was given to me by someone who knew Einstein in his later years.

  5. Einstein to Hans Muehsam, Mar. 30, 1954, AEA 38-434.

  6. Einstein to Conrad Habicht and Maurice Solovine, Apr. 3, 1953, AEA 21-294; Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Feb. 27, 1955, AEA 21-306.

  7. Sayen, 294.

  8. Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, May 1, 1954, AEA 75-918.

  9. Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, unfinished letter, Dec. 28, 1954, courtesy of Bob Cohn, purchased at Christie’s sale, Einstein Family Correspondence.

  10. Gertrude Samuels, “Einstein, at 75, Is Still a Rebel,”New York Times Magazine , Mar. 14, 1954.

  11. Johanna Fantova journal, 1954, in Calaprice, 354–363.

  12. Wolfgang Pauli to Max Born, Mar. 3, 1954, in Born 2005, 213.

  13. Einstein to Michele Besso, Aug. 10, 1954, AEA 7-420.

  14. Einstein to Louis de Broglie, Feb. 8, 1954, AEA 8-311.

  15. Einstein 1916, final appendix to the 1954 ed., 178.

  16. Bertrand Russell to Einstein, Feb. 11, 1955, AEA 33-199; Einstein to Bertrand Russell, Feb. 16, 1955, AEA 33-200.

  17. Einstein to Niels Bohr, Mar. 2, 1955, AEA 33-204.

  18. Bertrand Russell, “Manifesto by Scientists for Abolition of War,” sent to Einstein on Apr. 5, 1955, AEA 33-209, and issued publicly July 9, 1955.

  19. Einstein to Farmingdale Elementary School, Mar. 26, 1955, AEA 59-632; Alice Calaprice, ed., Dear Professor Einstein (New York: Prometheus, 2002), 219.

  20. Einstein to Vero and Bice Besso, Mar. 21, 1955, AEA 7-245.

  21. Eric Rogers, “The Equivalence Principle Demonstrated,” in French, 131; I. Bernard Cohen,“An Interview with Einstein,”Scientific American (July 1955).

  22. Whitrow, 90; Einstein to Bertrand Russell, Apr. 11, 1955, AEA 33-212.

  23. Einstein to Zvi Lurie, Jan. 5, 1955, AEA 60-388; Abba Eban, An Autobiography (New York: Random House, 1977), 191; Nathan and Norden, 640.

  24. Helen Dukas, “Einstein’s Last Days,” AEA 39-71; Calaprice, 369; Pais 1982, 477.

  25. Helen Dukas, “Einstein’s Last Days,” AEA 39-71; Helen Dukas to Abraham Pais, Apr. 30, 1955, in Pais 1982, 477.

  26. Michelmore, 261.

  27. Nathan and Norden, 640.

  28. Einstein, final calculations, AEA 3-12. The final page can be viewed at www.alberteinstein.info/db/ViewImage.do?DocumentID=34430&Page=12.

  EPILOGUE: EINSTEIN’S BRAIN AND EINSTEIN’S MIND

  1. Michelmore, 262. Einstein’s will, which was witnessed by the logician Kurt Gödel, among others, gave Helen Dukas $20,000, most of his personal belongings and books, and the income from his royalties until she died, which she did in 1982. Hans Albert received only $10,000; he died while a visiting lecturer in Woods Hole, Mass., in 1973, survived by a son and daughter. Einstein’s other son, Eduard, received $15,000 to assure his continued care at the Zurich asylum, where he died in 1965. His stepdaughter Margot got $20,000 and the Mercer Street house, which was actually already in her name, and she died there in 1986. Dukas and Otto Nathan were made literary executors, and they guarded his reputation and papers so zealously that biographers and the editors of his collected papers would for years be stymied when they attempted to print anything verging on the merely personal.

  2. “Einstein the Revolutionist,”New York Times , Apr. 19, 1955;Time , May 2, 1955. The lead story in the extra edition of The Daily Princetonian was written by R. W. “Johnny” Apple, a future Times correspondent.

  3. The weird tale has produced two fascinating books: Carolyn Abraham’s Possessing Genius, a comprehensive account of the odyssey of Einstein’s brain, and Michael Paterniti’s Driving Mr. Albert, a delightful narrative of a ride across America with Einstein’s brain in the trunk of a rented Buick. There have also been some memorable articles, including Steven Levy’s “My Search for Einstein’s Brain,”New Jersey Monthly , August 1978; Gina Maranto’s “The Bizarre Fate of Einstein’s Brain,”Discover , May 1985; Scott McCartney, “The Hidden Secrets of Einstein’s Brain Are Still a Mystery,”Wall Street Journal , May 5, 1994. In addition, Einstein’s ophthalmologist Henry Abrams happened to wander into the autopsy room, and he ended up taking with him his former patient’s eyeballs, which he subsequently kept in a New Jersey safe deposit box.

  4. Abraham, 22. Abraham interviewed the grown girl in 2000.

  5. “Son Asked Study of Einstein’s Brain,”New York Times , Apr. 20, 1955; Abraham, 75. Harvey had indicated that he was going to send the brain to Montefiore Medical Center in New York to oversee the studies. But as doctors there waited in anticipation, he changed his mind and decided to keep it to himself. The dispute made headlines. “Doctors Row over Brain of Dr. Einstein,” reported the Chicago Daily Tribune. Abraham, 83, citing Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr. 20, 1955.

  6. Levy 1978. See also www.echonyc.com/~steven/einstein.html.

  7. See Abraham, 214–230, for an account of this issue.

  8. Bill Toland, “Doctor Kept Einstein’s Brain in Jar 43 Years: Seven Years Ago, He Got ‘Tired of the Responsibility,’ ”Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , Apr. 17, 2005.

  9. Marian Diamond, “On the Brain of a Scientist,”Experimental Neurology 88 (1985); www.newhorizons.org/neuro/diamond_einstein.htm.

  10. Sandra Witelson et al., “The Exceptional Brain of Albert Einstein,”Lancet , June 19, 1999; Lawrence K. Altman, “Key to Intellect May Lie in Folds of Einstein’s Brain,”New York Times , June 18, 1999; www.fhs.mcmaster.ca/psychiatryneuroscience/faculty/witelson; Steven Pinker, “His Brain Measured Up,”New York Times , June 24, 1999.

  11. Einstein to Carl Seelig, Mar. 11, 1952, AEA 39-013. See also Bucky, 29: “I am not more gifted than anybody else. I am just more curious than the av
erage person, and I will not give up on a problem until I have found the proper solution.”

  12. Seelig 1956a, 70.

  13. Born 1978, 202.

  14. Einstein to William Miller, quoted in Life magazine, May 2, 1955, in Calaprice, 261.

  15. Hans Tanner, quoted in Seelig 1956a, 103.

  16. André Maurois, Illusions (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 35, courtesy of Eric Motley. Perse was the pseudonym of Marie René Auguste Alexis Léger, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1960.

  17. Newton’s Principia, book 3; Einstein, “On the Method of Theoretical Physics,” the Herbert Spencer lecture, Oxford, June 10, 1933, in Einstein 1954, 274.

  18. Clark, 649.

  19. Lee Smolin, “Einstein’s Lonely Path,”Discover (Sept. 2004).

  20. Einstein’s foreword to Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), xv.

  21. Einstein, “Freedom and Science,” in Ruth Anshen, ed., Freedom, Its Meaning (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1940), 92, reprinted in part in Einstein 1954, 31.

  22. Einstein to Phyllis Wright, Jan. 24, 1936, AEA 52-337.

  23. Einstein to Herbert S. Goldstein, Apr. 25, 1929, AEA 33-272. For a discussion of Maimonides and divine providence in Jewish thought, see Marvin Fox, Interpreting Maimonides (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 229–250.

  24. Banesh Hoffmann, in Harry Woolf, ed., Some Strangeness in the Proportion (Saddle River, N.J.: Addison-Wesley, 1980), 476.

  INDEX

  Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

  Abraham, Max, 221, 592n

  Abrams, Henry, 640n

  acceleration, 108, 145–49, 155, 181–82, 188–92, 199, 201–2, 223, 319–20, 511, 548, 607n

  “action at a distance,” 319–20, 330, 346–47, 448–53, 454, 458

  Adler, Friedrich, 38–39, 150–51, 156, 158–59, 163, 240

  AEG, 302

  affine connection, 339, 344

  African-Americans, 445, 505, 531

  Agriculture Department, U.S., 443–44

  Albert I, King of Belgium, 415–16, 432