Einstein

by Philipp Frank

  For Einstein religion is both a mystical feeling toward the laws of the universe and a feeling of moral obligation toward his fellow men as well. Nevertheless, the strictly logical-empirical character of his thought prevents him from assuming a scientific or apparently scientific link between these two feelings. We may feel a hint of it in music, which expresses what cannot be formulated in words.

  This feeling, however, has been misunderstood by some people, since Einstein has never placed any importance on the formal aspects of religion. It was striking how readily Einstein used the word “God” as a figurative expression, even in physics. It will be recalled that he had repeatedly expressed his rejection of the statistical conception of physics with the statement: “I cannot believe that God plays dice with the world.” It is certain that the word “God” is used here only as a figure of speech and not in a theological sense. Other physicists, however, do not employ this figure of speech with equal readiness. One of Einstein’s finest remarks, which is recorded on a wall in the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, expresses his conception of the nature of physical science by means of the same figure of speech. Einstein wants to say that from a mathematical standpoint the system of physical laws is very complex, and that to understand it very great mathematical capacities are required. Nevertheless, he has hope that nature actually obeys a system of mathematical laws, and that the human mind can find these laws if it allows itself to be led by its scientific judgment. All this is expressed by the aforementioned remark:

  “God is sophisticated, but he is not malicious.”

  In the fall of 1940 a conference was held in New York to discuss what contributions science, philosophy, and religion could make to the cause of American democracy. Einstein was among those asked to address the conference. At first he did not want to write anything, as he disliked to attract public attention to himself, especially in political matters. Nevertheless, as the aim of the conference appealed to him, he allowed himself, even though he would not appear and speak in person, to be induced to send a written contribution, entitled “Science and Religion.” In it he said :

  “The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and of science lies in the concept of a personal God. It is the aim of science to establish general rules which determine the reciprocal conceptions of objects in time and space.… It is mainly a program, and faith in the possibility of its accomplishment in principle is only founded on partial success. But hardly anyone could be found who would deny these partial successes and ascribe them to human self-deception.…

  “The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events, the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been established.…

  “To the sphere of religion belongs the faith that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that it is comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

  There is apparently nothing sensational or shocking in these sentences. Those scientists who were willing to concede to religion an important place in human life have generally found that Einstein formulated just what they thought. On the other hand, there are certainly many scientists who take it much amiss that Einstein even mentions religion and spirituality in the same breath with science.

  Suddenly, however, a number of people appeared with the cry: “Einstein wants to deprive us of our personal God.” “It is this very personal element in God,” they said, “that is most precious to man.” Einstein received innumerable letters, many containing vehement accusations to the effect that he wanted to rob people of such a beneficial faith. Letters to the editor appeared in newspapers, in which the writers protested against permitting a “refugee” to meddle with the belief in God.

  There were Christian clergymen who asserted that the expression “personal God” was characteristic of the Christian God in contradistinction to the Jewish God, and that Einstein was carrying on a polemic against the Christian conception of God. Actually Einstein knew nothing of these subtleties of Christian and Jewish theology. On the contrary he wanted to emphasize the common ground of liberal Judaism and liberal Christianity in their conception of God. But here again, as in so many instances, his well-meant intentions involved him in odious and malicious polemics, which he could not have foreseen.

  As in most other points, Einstein advocated practically positivistic views concerning the relations of the exact sciences and of science in general to human conduct. To the question whether the goal of human life could be derived from science only, Einstein, like positivism, replied with a decided “No.” Like logical positivism, Einstein is of the opinion that no matter what degree of mathematical simplicity and beauty the laws of nature exhibit, no matter how well they reflect observation, they can never tell us what man’s aims in life should be. From natural laws we learn only how nature behaves, how we can utilize these forces to realize human aims, not what these aims should be.

  These aims man can learn only by example and indoctrination. It is this indoctrination that Einstein believes to be the task of the church, not the preaching of a certain conception of nature.

  Because Einstein is profoundly convinced that science, even when most highly developed, cannot present man with a goal, he is far from disputing the usefulness of church organizations. He does not care for religious ritual, but he realizes the value of churches and religious services as means of education; and in so far as the ritual increases the effect of indoctrination, he has learned to appreciate the value of religious ceremony.

  Einstein’s views on the responsibility of the church for moral education may be seen, perhaps, in an address that he delivered in the summer of 1939 in the theological seminar at Princeton before an audience of clergymen and students of theology. The title of the lecture was “The Goal.” Among other things he said:

  “It is certainly true that principles cannot be more securely founded than on experience and consciously clear thinking. In this one will have to agree absolutely with the extreme rationalists. The weak point of the conception, however, lies in the fact that those principles which are decisive and necessary for our actions and judgments of value cannot be obtained only in this scientific way. The scientific method cannot teach us anything but the conceptual comprehension of the reciprocal relations among facts. The endeavor to obtain such objective knowledge is one of the loftiest aspirations of which man is capable, and you will certainly not suspect me of underrating the heroic efforts and achievements of the human mind in this field. On the other hand, however, it is clear that no path leads from a knowledge of that which is to that which should be. No matter how clear and perfect our knowledge of present existence, no goal for our human aspirations can be inferred from it.… No matter how splendid the knowledge of truth as such may be, as a guide it is so impotent that it is not even able to establish the justification and the value of this very striving for a knowledge of the truth.…

  “Reason apprises us of the interdependence of aims and values. What thought alone cannot give us are the ultimate and most fundamental goals, in terms of which the more secondary ones are oriented. The setting up of the most fundamental goals and valuations and their establishment in the life of the individual seem to me to be the most important function of religion in the social life of man. If one should ask whence these fundamental goals receive their authority, since they are not set up by reason and cannot be founded upon it, one can only answer that they do not come into existence as a result of ar
gument and proof, but instead by revelation, and through the actions of strong personalities. One should not attempt to prove them, but rather to recognize their essence as clearly and purely as possible.

  “The most fundamental principles of our aspirations and valuations are given to us in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. It is a lofty goal.… When one divests this goal of its religious form and regards only this purely human side, it may be expressed as follows:

  “Free and self-responsible development of the individual so that he will freely and joyfully put his energies at the service of the community of man. If attention is paid to the content and not to the form, the same words may be considered as the expression of the fundamental democratic principle. The true democrat deifies his nation just as little as the religious person in our sense does.”

  Einstein’s conception of the relation between religion and science is very similar to that prevailing in the liberal Protestant churches of America. As an example one need only cite the views of an outstanding representative of American science such as Robert Millikan. According to this conception, science can never be criticized or directed by religion, since it deals with very different aspects of human life. Millikan once said:

  “Let me show why in the nature of things there can be no conflict. This appears as soon as one attempts to define what is the place of religion in human life. The purpose of science is to develop without prejudice a knowledge of the facts and the laws of nature. The even more important task of religion, on the other hand, is to develop the conscience, the ideals and the aspirations of mankind.”

  This conception of religion abandons completely any demand for belief in any specific scientific or historical facts, and regards religion as a social institution, the purpose of which is to promote a certain attitude toward life and a certain type of behavior in our daily living. Einstein’s conception of religion fits in very well with this general attitude. Consequently we can understand why English and American clergymen in particular have been so much interested in Einstein.

  6. Beginning of the Atomic Age

  The dramatic climax with which the second World War was brought to an end by the atomic bomb again brought Einstein’s name to public attention. The result that he had derived from his special theory of relativity in 1905 — namely, that mass and energy are equivalent — was demonstrated to the world with almost incredible force of destruction.

  As was mentioned in Section 7 of Chapter III, there are nuclear transformations in which a part of the mass of the atomic nucleus is transformed into energy. Numerous such reactions were discovered by scientists, but in all cases the energy required to perform the transformation was much greater than that obtained from the reaction. Hence the practical use of nuclear transformations as a source of power did not seem feasible.

  The whole picture changed, however, with the discovery by Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner of the fission of uranium. These scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin found that when uranium is bombarded with neutrons, its nucleus sometimes breaks up into two more or less equal parts with the liberation of a tremendous quantity of energy. When this news was communicated to other laboratories, the startling result was immediately confirmed. Furthermore, Enrico Fermi, an Italian physicist who had fled to the United States from the Fascist regime, pointed out the possibility, which was soon found to be true, that this breaking up of the uranium nucleus is accompanied by the production of several neutrons. The important significance of this last discovery lies in the fact that this process, named the “fission” of uranium, may be made self-sustaining. Once the process is started, the neutrons produced by the fission of one uranium nucleus can cause others to break up, and the neutrons from these can, in turn, cause other fissions. Thus a self-perpetuating nuclear “chain reaction,” in which a large number of nuclei breaks up with the consequent liberation of a tremendous amount of energy, became a possibility. Calculations showed that as much energy would be released by the fission of a pound of uranium as by the burning of thousands of tons of coal.

  It soon became evident to many scientists that this liberation of energy may be made to take place almost instantaneously, and that consequently uranium bombs with millions of times the destructive power of ordinary explosives could be produced. It was also evident to them that if such an instrument came into the hands of the fascist nations, they would use it in their war of aggression, and civilization would then be doomed. Such apprehensions were felt especially strongly by those scientists who had fled from the persecutions in their native countries. Two physicists at Columbia University, a Hungarian named Leo Szilard, who had fled from the University of Berlin, and the aforementioned Fermi, became convinced that the military authorities in the United States ought to be informed about this possibility. Moreover, Szilard realized that unless this problem was taken to a government official in a very high position, their words would not be heeded. He had been acquainted with Einstein in Berlin and it seemed to Szilard that Einstein’s great reputation and world-wide recognition as a physicist could be used to convince the authorities of the importance of this problem. He therefore got in contact with Eugene Wigner, another Hungarian physicist, then teaching at Princeton University, and in July 1939 they conferred with Einstein.

  At that time the average engineer, civilian or military, regarded the theory of relativity as something very bookish, which only impractical college professors talked about and which would never have any industrial application. And as for nuclear physics, he had not even heard of it. It was therefore obvious that the problem of interesting the government in the practical use of atomic energy and of obtaining funds for its development was a difficult one. To these scientists it seemed that if anybody would respond to such a suggestion, it was President Roosevelt. He had been aware of the Nazi policy of aggression from the very beginning, and he was fully cognizant of the threat to the future security of this country. Moreover, he was not as firmly convinced of the foolishness of college professors as most politicians are.

  In view of these circumstances, Szilard and Fermi suggested to Einstein that he make a direct appeal to the President.

  As we have already seen, Einstein disliked becoming involved in public affairs, and he felt a special reluctance to give advice on military affairs and to encourage the development of the most devastating weapon yet discovered by man. On the other hand, he was convinced that the Nazis would be in possession of atomic power in the near future and would use it to subdue the rest of the world. With the responsibility that he felt in his exceptional position as the most famous scientist in this country, he realized what his duty was.

  On August 2, 1939 Einstein addressed a letter to President Roosevelt, which began:

  “Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard which has been communicated to me in manuscript leads me to expect that the element Uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future.… A single bomb of this type … exploded in a port … might very well destroy the whole port, together with the surrounding territory.…”

  Furthermore, Einstein advised the President of the probability that research in this field might be far advanced in Germany, and stressed the great danger that the United States would incur if the Nazis got hold of such a bomb. Einstein suggested that a special organization with a staff of scientists who had devoted themselves to nuclear research should be created to carry on the investigations on the practical use of uranium.

  The result of this project which was so dramatically made public and the subsequent publicity concerning the organization and development of the Manhattan Project, as it was later called, are too well known by now to need reiteration here.

  The immediate reaction of the American people to the announcement of the atomic bomb and the Japanese surrender, which soon followed, was the feeling of relief that the war was over and of pride that the United States had proved to be in the lead in science.

  The scientists who had worked
on the development of the atomic bomb, however, saw in it a political implication that gave them cause for alarm. The war had been brought to an end with a brilliant victory for the democracies, but the establishment of peace seemed to lead to an impasse. An atmosphere of distrust had arisen among the Allies which could easily sow the seed for another war. Moreover, the atomic bomb now made it possible for an aggressor nation to make a surprise attack that would practically annihilate its opponent within a few minutes. The scientists felt the full weight of the responsibility that they had created, and they began to take action in educating the Congress and the public in general. They wanted the whole nation to realize the full gravity of the situation. The “secret” of the atomic bomb would be shortlived and there is no adequate defense against it.

  For Einstein, who had been instrumental both in the development of the basic theory and in the approach to President Roosevelt, the responsibility weighed doubly hard. He agreed wholeheartedly with the scientists like Oppenheimer and Shapley who tried their best to explain the full implications of the new weapon to the politicians and the military authorities. Einstein, however, has always disliked getting involved in politics and he was never willing to compromise his views with the troubles of the next day. He is in full agreement with the view expressed by Emery Reves in his book The Anatomy of Peace, in which we read: “We must grasp the fact that it is necessary to limit the sovereignty of nations and to establish a world government which will regulate the relations between nations by law, as the United States, for example, now regulates the relations between states.” For this reason Einstein is not satisfied with the suggestion to hand over the secret of the atomic bomb to the principal members of the United Nations or even to the United Nations organization itself.