Einstein
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Copyright 1947, 1953 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages and reproduce not more than three illustrations in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper.
PUBLISHED IN CANADA BY MCCLELLAND & STEWART LIMITED
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 20, 1947
eISBN: 978-0-307-83136-1
v3.1_r1
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
— ALBERT EINSTEIN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE PHOTOGRAPHS reproduced in this book were obtained with the friendly help of Miss Helen Dukas of Princeton, Professor Rudolph W. Ladenburg of Princeton University, Professor Harlow Shapley of Harvard University, and Dr. and Mrs. Gustav Bucky of New York. The diagrams were designed by Mr. Gerald Holton of Harvard University, and the Index compiled with the co-operation of Miss Martha Henderson of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
Illustrations
Introduction
I. EINSTEIN’S YOUTH AND TRAINING
1 Family Background
2 Childhood
3 Gymnasium in Munich
4 Intellectual Interests
5 Departure from Munich
6 Student at Zurich
7 Official of a Patent Office
II. CONCEPTIONS OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD BEFORE EINSTEIN
1 Philosophical Conception of Nature
2 Organismic Physics of the Middle Ages
3 Mechanistic Physics and Philosophy
4 Relativity Principle in Newtonian Mechanics
5 Ether as a Mechanical Hypothesis
6 Remnants of Medieval Concepts in Mechanistic Physics
7 Critics of the Mechanistic Philosophy
8 Ernst Mach: The General Laws of Physics Are Summaries of Observations Organized in Simple Forms
9 Henri Poincaré: The General Laws of Physics Are Free Creations of the Human Mind
10 Positivistic and Pragmatic Movements
11 Science at the End of the Nineteenth Century
III. BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA IN PHYSICS
1 Life in Bern
2 Interest in Philosophy
3 The Fundamental Hypotheses of the Theory of Relativity
4 Consequences of Einstein’s Two Hypotheses
5 Relativity of Time
6 Relativity of Other Physical Concepts
7 Equivalence of Mass and Energy
8 Theory of Brownian Motion
9 Origin of the Quantum Theory
10 Theory of the Photon
IV. EINSTEIN AT PRAGUE
1 Professor at the University of Zurich
2 Appointment to Prague
3 Colleagues at Prague
4 The Jews in Prague
5 Einstein’s Personality Portrayed in a Novel
6 Einstein as a Professor
7 Generalization of the Special Theory of Relativity
8 Influence of Gravity on the Propagation of Light
9 Departure from Prague
V. EINSTEIN AT BERLIN
1 The Solvay Congress
2 Trip to Vienna
3 Invitation to Berlin
4 Einstein’s Position in the Academic Life of Berlin
5 Relationship with Colleagues
6 Relationship with Students
7 Outbreak of the World War
8 German Science in the War
9 Life in Wartime
VI. THE GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY
1 New Theory of Gravitation
2 Role of Four-Dimensional Space
3 Einstein Suggests Experimental Tests of His Theory
4 Cosmological Problems
5 Expeditions to Test Einstein’s Theory
6 Confirmation of the Theory
7 Attitude of the Public
VII. EINSTEIN AS A PUBLIC FIGURE
1 Einstein’s Political Attitude
2 Anti-Semitism in Postwar Germany
3 The Zionist Movement
4 Einstein as a Pacifist
5 Campaigns against Einstein
VIII. TRAVELS THROUGH EUROPE, AMERICA, AND ASIA
1 Holland
2 Czechoslovakia
3 Austria
4 Invitation to the United States
5 Reception by the American People
6 England
7 Einstein Tower and the Rathenau Murder
8 France
9 China, Japan, Palestine, and Spain
10 Nobel Prize, Alleged Trip to Russia
IX. DEVELOPMENT OF ATOMIC PHYSICS
1 Einstein as a Teacher in Berlin
2 Structure of the Atom
3 Mechanics of the Atom
4 Bohr’s Complementarity Principle
5 Einstein’s Philosophy of Science
6 Unified Field Theory
X. POLITICAL TURMOIL IN GERMANY
1 Einstein’s Fiftieth Birthday
2 Visiting Professor at Pasadena
3 Racial Purging in German Universities
4 Hostility toward Einstein
5 Last Weeks in Europe
6 Einstein’s Views on Military Service
XI. EINSTEIN’S THEORIES AS POLITICAL WEAPONS AND TARGETS
1 Scientific Theories and Political Ideologies
2 Pro-Fascist Interpretation
3 Einstein’s Theories Attacked as Expressions of Jewish Mentality
4 Attitude of the Soviet Philosophy toward Einstein
5 Einstein’s Theories as Arguments for Religion
XII. EINSTEIN IN THE UNITED STATES
1 The Institute for Advanced Study
2 Einstein’s Decision to Join the Institute
3 Einstein’s Activities at the Institute
4 Refugee Scholars
5 Einstein’s Attitude toward Religion
6 Beginning of the Atomic Age
7 Life in Princeton
ILLUSTRATIONS
1.1 Einstein’s paternal grandparents
1.2 Einstein at four
1.3 Einstein and his sister
3.1 Einstein’s graduating class
3.2 Einstein and his first wife
3.3 Einstein in 1905
3.4 Einstein in the years of his greatest productivity (1913)
4.1 Einstein and prominent physicists at Leyden, the Netherlands
5.1 Einstein with Harvard scientists on the occasion when he received his honorary degree
5.2 Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore
6.1 Eclipse of the sun (1922)
6.2 Einstein and Steinmetz
9.1 Five winners of the Nobel Prize in physics
9.2 Recent portrait of Einstein
10.1 Einstein at the Michelson celebration in Berlin
10.2 Michelson, Einstein, and Millikan
12.1 Einstein in his Princeton office
12.2 Einstein in his Princeton home
INTRODUCTION
1. “To understand Einstein” means to understand the world of the twentieth century
I am writing this biography of Einstein not for physicists and mathematicians, not for philosophers and theologians, not for Zionists and pacifists, but for people who want to understand something of the contradictory and complicated twentieth-century world.
It has often been said that “to understand precisely one hundredth of an inch of a blade of grass, one would have to understand the universe.” But one who could achieve such understanding of a blade of grass would find nothing unclear about anything else in the universe. In a like spirit it can be said that anyone who comprehends e
ven a little of Einstein’s personality, his work, and its influence will have taken a long step toward an understanding of the world of the twentieth century.
Through a combination of fortunate circumstances I had the desire and opportunity to observe Einstein as a man and a scientist. Since my student days I had been captivated again and again by the way in which he was able to derive newly discovered, and often strange, natural phenomena from simple and elegant laws. The connection between physical and philosophic theories had also attracted me repeatedly. As time went on, one question became for me more and more an object of curiosity and often of amazement: why is it that scientific and philosophical theories that apparently have hardly anything to do with human life are so often employed to influence attitudes toward practical questions in politics and religion?
In 1912 I became Einstein’s successor as professor of theoretical physics at the University of Prague; and in 1938, when I came to the United States, I again met Einstein, who had already been here for five years. I conceived the idea of taking advantage of this physical proximity to prepare an account of his life and work. When I told Einstein about this plan he said: “How strange that you are following in my footsteps a second time!”
Before we arrived in the United States my wife often told me that I had now written so many books and papers palatable only to a small number of specialists that for a change it would be good for me to write a book more people could enjoy. As a matter of fact, I have frequently regretted the wide gap yawning between the books written for specialists in science and those for the large community of educated men and women. I had been looking for an occasion to make a contribution toward bridging this gap. I longed to write a book that could help make understandable the work done by contemporary scientists and to do so by providing more insight into the psychological and cultural background of scientific research than regular scientific books, even of the popular brand, can offer.
All these circumstances encouraged me to write this book. Many specialists have tried to dissuade me, pointing out that I would have only a choice of two evils. Either I would write to be understood by the public at large and the book would become trivial and be criticized by the scientists; or I would write it to please the specialists, but then it would be incomprehensible to others.
Such arguments did not deter me, because I did not believe there was such a fundamental difference between layman and specialist. Every specialist becomes a layman as soon as he leaves his own very narrow field. This book deals with so many fields of human life and thought that no one can be a specialist in all of them. Consequently I believe that I may, with a clear conscience, write for the laity without appearing superficial to the specialist, because in reality the complete specialist does not exist.
By training and occupation I am a mathematician and physicist, not a writer. Through this occupation one develops an aversion to exaggerations of all kinds. One acquires enthusiasm only for what is directed toward the search for truth and its presentation in a comprehensible and polished form.
In so far as pure facts are concerned, I have made partial use of earlier biographies of Einstein. The portrayal of Einstein’s personality and of his position in our time, however, derives from my study of the writings of Einstein’s friends and enemies, and in large measure from personal conversations with Einstein himself.
The picture of Einstein as presented throughout this book is the one I have derived from my own impressions. It is in no way Einstein’s autobiography. I describe Einstein just as a scientist would describe any other remarkable, rare, and mighty natural or historical phenomenon. Only thus can justice be done to a great man.
2. Einstein’s popularity and incomprehensibility
In a recent biography of one of the greatest physicists the statement occurs: “After he printed his new principles, the students on the college campus said as he passed by: there goes the man who has written a book that neither he nor anyone else understands.” This appears in a biography not of Einstein, but of Isaac Newton, who in our day has so often been contrasted as an example of lucidity with the “incomprehensible” Einstein.
A contemporary of Newton extolled him in a poem that culminated in the lines:
Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.
And in our day the following lines were added:
But not for long. The devil howling “Ho,
Let Einstein be” restored the status quo.
This characteristic of “incomprehensibility” played a large part in the popular Einstein legend. In New York an insurance agent whom I told of my intention to write this book, astounded, said: “I hope you won’t try to convince me that you can understand Einstein.” When I asked why he considered it impossible, he replied categorically: “We use the word ‘Einstein’ as equivalent to ‘incomprehensible.’ When we want to say something is incompŕehensible, we say ‘That is Einstein.’ That is why it is meaningless to say you understand Einstein.”
An alleged remark by Einstein to the effect that only twelve people in the world understand his theory has become widespread. The question must be raised whether one ever actually understands anything, and whether what is called incomprehensible does not depend on the demands that one makes. Anyone who wonders that great popularity should be combined with incomprehensibility must realize that both have an important characteristic in common: the quality of being unusual.
Whatever is unusual is incomprehensible, but at the same time it possesses the power of attraction. And in the popular mind this “unusual” quality has always been linked with Einstein.
One wintry day I arrived in Princeton. The streets were piled high with snow that was already beginning to melt. There were no busses or streetcars, and I wanted to get to the residence of a mathematician who lived at some distance from the road, at 270 Mercer Street. I inquired of a man who was shoveling snow where this house might be. The man looked up from his work and, with considerable astonishment, said: “270? That’s Einstein’s house.” As Einstein lives at 112 Mercer Street, I assured him that it was definitely not Einstein’s house. “Well,” he said, “we always call No. 270 Einstein’s house. If you don’t believe it, hop on my truck and take a look at the house.” I was happy to get any vehicle in that weather and so we rode down to No. 270.
It was a house with a flat roof in the style of modern European architecture, like that of the Bauhaus, and was actually quite different from the other houses on the street, which were all more or less colonial in style. The snow-shoveler said triumphantly: “Doesn’t this house look queer — very different from all its neighbors?” I could only answer: “But the house in which Einstein really lives, No. 112, looks exactly like the neighboring houses from the outside.”
Many people have no idea to what branch of human knowledge the theory of relativity actually belongs. During the twenties, in Prague, I visited one of those popular lectures on Einstein’s theory which were so common then. There I met a Catholic theologian with whom I was acquainted, who introduced me as a physicist to a Bishop who was present. “Oh,” said the Bishop, quite amazed, “are the physicists also interested in Einstein’s theory?” Later we shall see that this question was indeed strange, and yet not as inappropriate as appears at first glance.
3. Superficial interpretations of Einstein’s theory
The public at large has always considered Einstein “incomprehensible.” A somewhat closer examination of popular conceptions of Einstein’s theories, however, reveals that there was something that people believed they understood. Obviously, anything completely incomprehensible cannot be admired. Generally, however, this nucleus of “comprehensibility” is found to be an enormous triviality. During the twenties I once arrived in a small town in Bohemia inhabited by the Sudeten Germans who were later to acquire such prominence. I arrived at the inn in the evening and found the guests smoking their pipes and drinking beer. When they learned that I was a ph
ysicist from Prague, one of them remarked he had heard that I occupied myself with Einstein’s theory. He said to me: “These Einsteinian theories are not new in our town. They were known here long before Einstein. For twenty years our municipal doctor used to come to this inn, light his pipe, and take his first drink of beer with the words: ‘All is relative.’ Einstein did not say more.”
In New York I once heard a passenger ask a bus conductor how far it was to Washington Square. The conductor replied emphatically and with some pride: “According to Einstein, ‘far’ is a relative idea. It depends on how much of a hurry you are in.”
On another occasion I listened to a lecture by a well-known popularizer of Einstein’s theory. He illustrated everything with slides. One picture showed a student in a classroom listening to the professor’s boring lecture. The student looked at the clock and sighed: “This is going to go on for a long time yet. Ten more minutes — an eternity.” The next picture showed the same student on a bench in the park talking with a beautiful girl. “I can stay only ten minutes longer,” says the girl; and the student sighs: “Ten minutes — it will pass like a flash.”
It was in 1927, however, that I had my most remarkable experience of this kind. It is of greater interest because it enables us to learn something about the role of Einstein’s theories in politics. At that time I happened to be traveling by train from Moscow to Leningrad. I entered into conversation with a fellow traveler, who turned out to be a professor of political philosophy. Having heard vaguely that the Einstein theory of relativity, which was already often opposed in Germany as “Bolshevism in physics,” had been characterized by a number of Soviet scientists as “bourgeois” and “reactionary,” and as the strangest rumors circulated about conditions in Russia, I did not know whether this was true. Consequently, I welcomed my chance meeting with this traveling companion and I conversed with him on various problems of political and scientific philosophy, so far as my knowledge of Russian permitted. Finally, half in fun, I said: “I would be grateful if you could answer a question for me. I cannot understand how Einstein’s theory of relativity is decried in some countries as ‘bolshevistic,’ and the same theory is opposed in Russia as ‘antibolshevistic.’ ”