Einstein

by Philipp Frank

  My companion reflected for a moment and then replied categorically: “In the capitalist countries the relativity theory maintains that the capitalistic economic system is only ‘relatively right.’ On the other hand, in Soviet Russia Einstein’s adherents claim that the Communist system is only ‘relatively right.’ As a result the relativists are quite rightly condemned everywhere.”

  4. Einstein’s personality and fate symbolize important features of the twentieth century

  Many people have sensed the greatness of Einstein’s theories; but men also want to have a reason for the homage that they give. Frequently it is difficult to attain an intellectual understanding of some great achievement, and yet one wants to explain why it is great. As a result, instead of indicating the actual reason for the greatness of the achievement, some superficial, trivial reason is given. Naturally this is not the real reason for the greatness of a man like Einstein.

  Despite the superficiality of the reasons given, the widespread admiration for Einstein’s theory can be understood only by considering Einstein’s position in history. Einstein’s theories appeared at an important turning-point in human thought on the universe. People looked with amazement on the revolution occurring before their eyes, and felt that Einstein’s theory was a particularly characteristic aspect of this revolution — its nucleus, so to say.

  Around 1900 it became continually clearer that even in inanimate matter chemical and physical processes did not occur in accordance with the laws that were valid for a machine, if one understands the word “machine” in the sense in which it is used by the engineer. Explanation of nature in terms of a mechanical analogy, however, had been a characteristic element in the emancipation of the human mind from the bonds of the Middle Ages. In consequence, the collapse of the “mechanical theory of the world” was often interpreted as a failure of this emancipation. It became an argument for a return to the Middle Ages in all aspects of life. More and more people began to doubt whether the progress prophesied by liberalism on the basis of this mechanical science of the nineteenth century would ever be capable of eliminating completely, or even of alleviating substantially, the material and spiritual troubles of mankind. As a result, this feeling of “bankruptcy” in nineteenth-century science went hand in hand with a similar attitude toward liberalism.

  Before and after 1900 there appeared characteristic intellectual movements opposed to “materialism” and “liberalism.” On the one hand, there was an outcry for a return to the organismic philosophy of the Middle Ages, a trend that in its political form later led to fascism. On the other hand, attempts were made to develop dynamic and organismic forms of materialism, thus giving rise to the various forms of Marxian socialism.

  All these philosophical and political groups appealed to the revolution in science for their intellectual basis, and thus in greater or lesser degree to the work and the person of Einstein. Thus, from the standpoint of the history of ideas, he was linked to the roots of fascism and of Marxism. For the same reasons Einstein is linked with those tendencies of the twentieth century which have operated toward a revival of religion, in opposition to the “materialistic” and “atheistic” convictions of eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century science, which were based primarily on the physical science of these periods. Any lessening in the prestige of this science meant a greater prestige for those tendencies which seemed to be directed toward a “new order” in the world.

  Einstein is of Jewish descent. At many turning-points in history the Jews have played the part of a scapegoat, so that the fate of this people reveals, as with a magnifying glass, much about the life and the problems of a period. For this ancient people juts into our own time like a rock from some primordial age, and because of its stubborn maintenance of ancient traditions has repeatedly aroused the antagonism of other peoples. With amazement and often with surprise the world sees this ancient stock, from which Jesus had once sprung and which was believed to be dead, producing again and again prophetic types. Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud will perhaps be regarded as false prophets, but no one can deny that they repeatedly agitated and uncovered innermost and sensitive aspects of human nature, thus offending and vexing many men.

  In some sense Einstein, too, belongs with these men. H. G. Wells very trenchantly described the characteristic element of his mind as “subtle simplicity.” And this “subtle simplicity” has become an essential element of the mind of the twentieth century. The principles underlying Einstein’s theories on the physical universe are of an uncanny simplicity, but from them derives a profusion of revolutionary consequences.

  For Einstein it was always evident that the history of mankind cannot be reduced to simple formulas. There are so many interacting influences that the future cannot be predicted. In greater or lesser degree we shall always have an impression of chaos, but if we consider the universe as a whole — the sun, the planets, the fixed stars, the Milky Way, and the distant galaxies and stellar nebulæ — there are mathematical laws of such sublime simplicity that the human mind can hardly express its amazement. Einstein has often emphasized that this feeling of amazement is closely related to a feeling of admiration. The existence of these simple laws in the chaos that surrounds us is a mysterious feature of the universe that sometimes arouses in Einstein feelings that he calls “religion.” Einstein has expressed the recognition of and the feeling for this “simplicity in the midst of chaos” in the sentence that I have taken as the motto of this book:

  “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.”

  The universe following simple laws and the chaotic world of human action — these are the two interlocking stages on which Einstein’s life has been played, and it is this that I want to portray here.

  5. Einstein experienced the history of our century

  Einstein passed that period of his life which was significant for the development of his mind in the Germany of Wilhelm II, after the dismissal of Bismarck. His parents belonged to the German lower middle class and shared its admiration for German Kultur and the “New Reich.” We shall see Einstein already as a small child in vehement protest against the spirit that regarded military drill as a model for education and religious training. We shall see Einstein fleeing the German school to live in a more liberal environment in Switzerland.

  The year 1905 was the decisive revolutionary year for the history of the world. In this year the new Russia was developing, Japan was entering the company of the world powers, and the groundwork was being laid for the outbreak of the World War of 1914. In that decisive year of 1905 Einstein still thought little about the germs of the future. At that time, however, he took the decisive steps that were to revolutionize our views of the physical universe. In 1905 he created the theory of relativity, the quantum theory, and the theory of atomic motion. All these revolutions in the picture of the physical world were soon interpreted as revolutions in our philosophical views on matter and energy, space, time, and causality. Soon the profoundest consequences were drawn for the doctrine of free will, for the role of the material and the spiritual in the world, and from this in turn consequences for morality, politics, and religion. Not until forty years later, in 1945, did the technological consequences of Einstein’s theories become evident in the liberation of atomic energy.

  Later we find Einstein as professor of physics at universities where German was spoken but which were situated outside the German Empire — in Zurich (Switzerland), and in Prague, which then belonged to Austria. In Prague there were already clearly evident the tensions arising from the sympathy of the Slavic population for Russia and France, and the Germanophile orientation of Austrian foreign policy. The atmosphere was pregnant with the coming World War, but Einstein was not much interested then. In this atmosphere he developed his theory of gravitation, and predicted the deviation of stellar light by the attraction of the sun.

  In 1913, immediately before the outbreak of the World War, Einstein moved to Berlin. The expectation of pa
rticipating in the intense scientific life of the city outweighed his aversion to the political and social atmosphere of a Germany led by Prussia, from which he had once fled to Switzerland. We see him in 1914 experiencing the beginning of the World War in Berlin. At first he saw in the war only its pitiable and deplorable human side. He participated in no political movement, even with his sympathies, and worked on his general theory of relativity.

  Toward the end of the war, however, especially after the Russian Revolution radically changed the face of the entire struggle, Einstein already felt that he would be driven from his work on the eternal laws of the universe into the world of human chaos. During the war he continued to work on cosmological problems. He investigated the possibility of a hypothesis of the finiteness of the universe, and from these studies developed later the hypothesis of the expanding universe. But the feeling grew stronger within him that the world of chaos was violently overflowing his scientific work. Like many other intellectuals he believed at first that the end of the war would lead to a better world, that cosmic lawfulness would be reflected, at least weakly, in the world of man. In this way the fate of Einstein and his theories became a symbol of the new Europe for which everyone hoped, the Europe of peace and mutual respect among all its peoples and social classes.

  Symbolic too, however, was the hatred that his life and work aroused among the enemies of this new Europe. After the war Germany sought scapegoats upon which to satisfy its inhibited aggressive tendencies and to relieve itself of its inferiority complex. These scapegoats were found in the pacifists, Jews, and democrats. As Einstein belonged to all three of these groups and in addition was world-famous, he became a favorite target for attack in Germany, and particularly in Berlin, where he lived. He now saw himself torn out of his world, out of the beautiful dream of an orderly universe ruled by simple laws, of which some slight reflection would appear in the world of men. It was repeatedly thrust upon his consciousness that he belonged to the Jewish people, that he was linked to specific political and social ideals, and that through these circumstances he was involved in the chaotic life of mankind.

  We shall read how Einstein courageously assumed this role that was forced on him, assumed it with the same confidence with which he fought his personal struggle for the laws of the universe. He became a leader of the Jewish community and an advocate of international conciliation. He advocated the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, and went on propaganda tours for the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

  We shall see how during the first years after the armistice, from 1919 on, he traveled all over the world to achieve his aims. He visited France, England, Japan, Palestine, and the United States. Everywhere he tried to utilize enthusiasm for the achievements of science in his work for the unity of mankind, and for the goal of finding a worthy place for the Jewish people in the family of nations. These endeavors aroused a wave of hatred against him among the advocates of a “Revolution of the Right.” This hatred did not remain confined to the chaotic human world, but overflowed even into the world of theories of the universe. The boundary between the two worlds appeared to become more and more indistinct.

  We shall see how Einstein, after returning to Berlin from his travels, found a changed situation; Field Marshal von Hindenburg was now the head of the German Republic. Thenceforth Einstein lived to all intents and purposes in the midst of the brewing National Socialist revolution. The ideas of international conciliation through scientific progress and of liberalism lost prestige, even among scientists.

  Stalin’s regime in Russia also contributed to this development. Socialism, it was thought, could be erected only on the basis of a powerful, nationalist Russia. This did not fit in with the ideology of the European “liberals.”

  Einstein now turned away from all party politics, because he found no party actually congenial. He fought from a more ethical, or perhaps even æsthetic, standpoint against militarism, which appeared to him to be the evil spirit of the age. Similarly, he was often unpleasantly affected by the nationalistic spirit of Zionism. He supported Zionism as a movement for the establishment of a Jewish national home, but not as a political party.

  Einstein’s life enables us to follow very clearly the entire story of the disillusionment of European liberals and intellectuals. We see him turning more and more away from Europe to seek new possibilities for his work across the ocean. Finally we shall see the end of the process that led from the election of Hindenburg as President, by way of the interim governments of Brüning and Papen, to Hitler’s accession to power. We shall see how at one stroke the world of human chaos came to rule over the world of knowledge. The authority of the state now declared openly and clearly: the intellect is the servant of the will, science the servant of politics.

  In the face of this brutal and naked reality, Einstein himself was forced to give up his radical antimilitaristic position. He was forced to assume a political position toward the struggle in the world and to admit the possibility of a “just” war. We shall see how he becomes an American citizen and experiences the mighty events in this country.

  Through Einstein’s life one can also trace the intellectual struggles of the twentieth century. As a child he grew up in a milieu that confronted religion with the indifference of the liberal bourgeois of the nineteenth century. In this child, however, religion as a mystical and artistic conception of the world formed an important element of his psychological life, nor did he notice much difference between the Jewish and the Christian religions. Soon after the end of the first World War, however, we find Einstein a conscious member of the Jewish community. Despite his continued aversion to Jewish religious orthodoxy and Jewish nationalism, he saw himself driven to work for this community. He clearly felt the burdens and the psychologically depressed state of the Jews in the world. It was clear to him that these circumstances presaged only greater oppression.

  In the period between the two World Wars, Einstein felt and publicly emphasized his solidarity with the Jewish community, but various aspects of his childhood attitude toward religion revived within him. He clearly felt the impotence of science in the face of the increasing influence of the doctrines of the master race and of the glorification of war, and he emphasized that much in the teachings of the Jewish as well as of the Christian churches is opposed to these predominant tendencies. We shall observe the strange spectacle of Einstein being condemned as a materialist, atheist, and bolshevik on the one hand, and on the other being cited enthusiastically and with approval by many Christian and Jewish clergymen as an example of the attitude of the modern scientist to religion. Similarly we shall trace his position in relation to the various political creeds. This attitude was always determined by a purely humanitarian point of view. Like so many progressive people of his time he expected much from the new socialist Russia. We shall see, however, how he was repeatedly repelled by the instances of intolerance that occurred there, and how he remained suspended between hope and fear. The same characteristic is also evident in his relations to the League of Nations, and toward other political ideas, even toward Zionism when it left the realm of ideas and took form in human organizations.

  Again and again political and religious parties wanted to interpret Einstein’s new physics as splendid confirmation of their philosophical basis and in this way to make Einstein their patron saint. From this we shall acquire a better understanding of the mutual interrelations of science, philosophy, religion, and politics, particularly as they are reflected in the intellectual personality of Einstein, a mirror undimmed and without distortions. In this mind simplicity and subtlety are united in a manner characteristic of great men. We shall learn to understand the manner in which Einstein confronts the world: with absolute confidence in the great things and with inexhaustible distrust of all details.

  6. How dreams come true

  Through the greatest part of his life Einstein’s thoughts were in search of the eternal laws ruling the universe while his physical person was subjecte
d to all the disturbances one calls traditionally “world history,” by which one means actually the vicissitudes of power politics. This double life reminds us somehow of the medieval church plays, where the Biblical stories were performed on two stages. On the upper stage God the Father, the Holy Virgin, and the angels performed a show of dignity and serenity while on the lower stage human beings displayed the petty miseries of life on earth. This analogy may help us a little to understand Einstein’s life during the nationalistic orgy of World War I and the nightmare of the approaching Nazi regime. When Einstein in 1933 had settled peacefully in the United States, it seemed at first that he could now devote himself to his great work of finding the “unified field theory,” the system of mathematical laws that would account for all physical facts, electromagnetic as well as mechanical and nuclear phenomena.

  After 1939, however, when the active intervention of the United States in the war against the Nazis seemed to be impending, the two stages of the play started merging more and more. Einstein was drawn into the actual performance of “world history.” He seemed for many people no longer to be a passive onlooker, but an actor in the united cast of saints and sinners that makes the world’s history. The sharp contrasts within his personality pattern, which have baffled so many people and led to so many misjudgments, revealed themselves now on a widely visible stage and made him again a target of futile attacks.

  Einstein has fought all his life for peace, friendship, and mutual esteem between all nations, all creeds and races. The establishment of the Nazi government in Germany poisoned the relations between these human groups to a degree that had not been known before among civilized people. A consistent attitude of antiviolence meant in those days an appeal for the suicide of all anti-Nazi forces all over the world. When it became clear that the United States government would actively take sides against the Nazi power, it was obvious that the Nazis would harness the immense potential of German science in the service of their war machine. The extraordinary mind of Franklin D. Roosevelt understood well that the German power could be defeated only by its own weapons.