Einstein on the Run

by Andrew Robinson

  To put it politely, this brief editorial is a feeble parody, rather than an informed appraisal, of why Einstein’s relativity matters to non-scientists. Yet, it does have at least this much historical value: it demonstrates beyond doubt the gulf of misunderstanding between the public and Einstein’s science, to which the man himself was constantly exposed after he became famous – even in his favourite country for physics.

  From Manchester, on the day after the lecture, Einstein and his wife moved south to London. Their host, Lord Richard Haldane, bade them welcome to his house at Queen Anne’s Gate for the duration of their stay in the capital. Having attended a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, at which Eddington gave an account of the solar eclipse expeditions in 1919, the Einsteins had dinner at the Haldanes with Eddington, Dyson, Thomson, Whitehead, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Randall Davidson) and others, and met George Bernard Shaw during an after-dinner reception. At some point, Archbishop Davidson said cautiously to Einstein of relativity: ‘Lord Haldane tells us that your theory ought to make a great difference to our morals.’ But Einstein refused to be drawn (as in his Manchester lecture), and replied simply: ‘Do not believe a word of it. It makes no difference. It is purely abstract – science.’ After dinner, Davidson’s wife explained to Einstein’s wife how a friend had been speaking of Professor Einstein’s theory ‘especially in its mystical aspect’. Elsa broke into laughter and cried: ‘Mystical! Mystical! My husband mystical!’

  Haldane, born in Edinburgh into a distinguished family (including scientists), had studied philosophy with honours at the University of Edinburgh and then at Göttingen University in the 1870s. The combination gave him both a lifelong sympathy for Germany and the German language – which he spoke fluently – and an urge to write books on philosophy, including The Reign of Relativity, published at the time of Einstein’s visit. (This treatise, arguing that the principle of relativity ‘will be found to date back to the days of ancient Greece’, though none too relevant to physics and somewhat ponderous in style, nevertheless went through three impressions in four months during 1921.) After a career as a successful barrister, Haldane entered politics in 1885 as a Scottish Liberal, in due course serving as secretary of state for war from 1905 to 1912 – during which he negotiated with the arrogant Kaiser Wilhelm II and also attempted to reduce the armed rivalry between Britain and Germany – and then as lord chancellor from 1912 to 1915, until he was hounded from office after a wartime propaganda campaign alleging that he had pro-German sympathies. ‘In a post-war Britain drained of most things except bitterness, Haldane was therefore in a delicate position vis-à-vis the Germans,’ wrote Clark. ‘It was certainly courageous of Einstein to have come so willingly to London; it was equally courageous of Haldane to be his host.’

  Although Einstein and Haldane appeared very different in background, interests and achievements, Einstein undoubtedly appreciated Haldane for his character and practicality, if not so much for his philosophy. (As Einstein ironically remarked in the mid-1920s about philosophers of relativity, ‘the less they know about physics the more they philosophise’.) Long after Haldane’s death in 1928, Einstein paid this warm tribute in a letter to Haldane’s biographer: ‘Lord Haldane was a man of kind and subtle feelings as is so rare in the case of men of quite unusual energy and working capacity,’ who somehow ‘gave the impression of a person whose leading motive was to serve in humility the causes he thought worthy.’ By way of example, Einstein recalled an occasion during his visit to England when Haldane told him of a trip to a mining district that he was due to make in order to give a popular lecture to the miners. ‘I never had the feeling that there was anything worthwhile for which he would not easily find the necessary time and strength.’

  The highlight of Einstein’s London visit was his lecture at King’s College on 13 June in the afternoon – after Einstein, accompanied by Haldane, had laid a wreath on the grave of Newton at Westminster Abbey in the morning. Arranged in April by Haldane with the principal of King’s, Sir Ernest Barker, the lecture was an unpredictable occasion – symbolised by the fact that Einstein left it to the college to decide his fee (£90), and then elected to donate almost half of this for the relief of distressed students in the universities of central Europe. ‘I was almost terrified by the commotion which his lecture excited, but I was still more elated by its success,’ Barker wrote in his memoirs, published in 1953. ‘Feeling against Germany was very much stronger after the war of 1914–18 than it has been since the war of 1939–45; and there were fears that the lecture might be disturbed or even prevented. Those fears proved groundless; but they were succeeded by other and opposite fears’ – of being overwhelmed by the potential audience. There was a great demand for tickets, ‘and we now began to fear that the lecture would be disturbed, or even prevented, by an uncontrollable crowd of would-be listeners – listeners, by the way, who would probably understand nothing, being ignorant alike of German and of relativity, but would none the less be eager to listen.’

  In the event, the lecture hall was packed out but orderly, with scores of students standing all round the walls. Yet, according to a detailed and scientifically well-informed eye-witness report in the Nation & Athenaeum, there was no welcoming applause after Haldane got to his feet and introduced Einstein with the words: ‘You are in the presence of the Newton of the twentieth century, of a man who has effected a greater revolution in thought than that of Copernicus, Galileo, and even Newton himself.’ The report continued:

  One felt the slight shock in the air. For, after all, is not Einstein a German? But Lord Haldane, smiling, wary, and implacable, drove the point home. They had to swallow it whole: the dose was not minimised, however indecent the truth might appear that the greatest scientific man the latter centuries have produced is a German Jew. One glanced at Einstein: he was patient, dreamy, looking at nothing.

  Einstein on his first visit to England, June 1921. He is being photographed in London at the home of his host Lord Richard Haldane (second from left), a former lord chancellor, lifelong Germanophile and author of a bestselling philosophical study of relativity.

  And then Lord Haldane, still with the resolute smile, went on to speak of Einstein’s violin playing. The audience relaxed; everybody felt relieved. He had the technique of a first-class professional, we were told, and more understanding of what he played than most first-class professionals. One glanced again at Einstein. He was beaming. He sat twisting his fingers in embarrassed pleasure, his face shining with delight. So he is, after all, susceptible to flattery.

  Now Einstein himself began to speak, in German, without notes, blackboard or mathematical formulae, and also without hesitation or repetition. He opened with a heartfelt, but also politically astute, tribute to English physics:

  It is a special joy for me to be able to speak in the capital of the country from where the most important ideas of theoretical physics were brought into the world. I think of the theories of the motion of masses and of gravitation, which Newton gave us, and of the concept of the electromagnetic field by Faraday and Maxwell, which provided physics with a new foundation. One may well say that the theory of relativity brought a kind of conclusion to Maxwell’s and Lorentz’s grand framework of ideas by trying to extend the physics of fields to all of its phenomena, gravitation included.

  Then he turned to the subject of the evening’s lecture: relativity. He wanted to emphasise, he said, that relativity was a theory that was not speculative in origin, but rather had arisen from his desire to adapt theoretical physics to observable facts as closely as possible. Hence relativity was the natural development of a path that could be followed over the centuries. Its abandonment of certain concepts of space, time and motion, hitherto regarded as fundamental, ‘must not be perceived as voluntary, but only as enforced by observed facts’.

  Here, one might have expected a reference to the recent confirmation of general relativity by the ‘observed facts’ of the 1919 eclipse expeditions. But, strangely, these we
re never mentioned by Einstein himself, either in the various reports of the lecture or in its published version.

  The silence from the audience continued. Then at some point Einstein paused and said, in German: ‘My lecture is already a little long.’ There came a storm of encouraging applause from all parts of the hall. ‘I shall take that as an invitation,’ he said, smiling, and the applause was redoubled. ‘But my further remarks will not be so easy to follow,’ he continued, and everybody laughed with him. At the end of the lecture, his ovation lasted for several minutes – ‘and surely not least for his courage’, noted a German-Jewish listener, recalling the occasion in a letter to The Times in 1933, after the rise of Nazism.

  At a grand dinner for Einstein that evening in King’s College, Barker said in his speech:

  We welcome you twice, for discovering a new truth which has added to the knowledge of the universe, and for coming to us from a country that was lately our enemy to knit again the broken threads of international science. If at your command the straight lines have been banished from our universe, there is yet one straight line which will always remain – the straight line of right and justice. May both our nations follow this straight line side by side in a parallel movement, which, in spite of Euclid, will yet bring them together in friendship with one another and with the other nations of the world.

  Among those present was Lindemann, who was meeting Einstein in person after a gap of ten years (since their first meeting at the Solvay Congress in Brussels in 1911). The following morning, 14 June, Lindemann whisked the Einsteins away from London by car in order to give Einstein his first glimpse of Oxford. An announcement in The Times on 15 June stated: ‘Professor Einstein paid a private visit to Oxford yesterday as the guest of Dr Lindeman [sic], of Wadham College. A tour was made of the principal University buildings, and the Professor returned to London in the evening.’

  Unfortunately, neither Einstein nor Lindemann recorded any impressions of the visit. It must have been brief, since the Einsteins in fact returned to London earlier than mentioned that day, by an afternoon train. Presumably Lindemann, probably at Einstein’s request, did not introduce him to any of his colleagues and friends, so that the Einsteins could have enough time to see the buildings. They did not meet even the university’s vice-chancellor. As Lindemann commented in a scribbled letter from Oxford to Haldane: ‘I enclose a note [for Einstein] which the vice-chancellor just brought here. He said he much regretted not having known of Einstein’s visit in time to offer him some hospitality.’ Then Lindemann congratulated Haldane on hosting Einstein in England: ‘Whatever anyone may hold about political matters, there is no doubt that international cooperation is absolutely essential in scientific questions and you have, I feel sure, done more to re-establish good relations by your reception of Einstein than anybody else could have done by years of endeavour.’ To which Haldane responded the following day after talking to Einstein in London: ‘They both enjoyed greatly their visit to Oxford and to yourself.’ He added: ‘Yes. I think that the German ambassador was right when he said to me on Monday evening [after Einstein’s London lecture] that the reception of Einstein in England would do something towards making the way smoother for the approach to better international relations. Our people have behaved in a manner worthy of them.’

  Certainly Einstein’s view chimed with Haldane’s (and Lindemann’s). A few days after returning to Germany on 17 June, he wrote to thank Haldane with transparently sincere emotion: ‘The wonderful experiences in England are still fresh in my mind and yet like a dream. The impression this land with its wonderful intellectual and political tradition left on me was a profound and lasting one, even larger than I had expected.’ He was extremely grateful, he said, for his ‘extraordinary reception’, and especially for the fact that influential individuals in England had expressed an open desire for international understanding. He concluded by thanking Haldane personally, together with Haldane’s sister, ‘from the bottom of my heart’ for their generous hospitality, kindness and friendliness.

  ‘There is no doubt that your visit has had more tangible results in improving the relations between our two countries than any other single event,’ Haldane replied. ‘Your name is a power in our country.’

  A funny lot, these Germans. To them I am a stinking flower, and yet they keep putting me into their buttonhole.

  Comment by Einstein in his travel diary in Argentina, April 1925

  Einstein’s growing fame and generous personal welcome in England in 1919–21 must have been a piquant experience for him. For back home in Germany, in striking contrast with England, this same period saw the birth of a vociferous anti-relativity movement – among a few notable scientists and some philosophers but also among the general public – culminating in the publication in 1931 of an anti-relativity book in German with the revealing title, A Hundred Authors against Einstein. Although this was not essentially an anti-Semitic publication, the anti-relativity movement coincided with increasing abuse of Einstein as a Jew, accentuated by his declared sympathy from 1921 onwards for the Zionist goal of establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine, in addition to abuse of his increasing sympathy for international pacifism.

  As a result, during the first half of the 1920s, Einstein found himself in a disturbing position. He was promoted and hailed as an important cultural ambassador for the Weimar Republic when he travelled and lectured in many countries – ranging from the United States and then England in 1921 to Japan in 1922, Palestine in 1923 and South America in 1925. Yet he was also fiercely attacked by many Germans, at home and abroad, and even placed at risk of assassination by right-wing extremists – as had happened to Walther Rathenau in 1922. In Argentina, for example, the German ambassador reported to his masters in Berlin on Einstein’s 1925 visit: ‘For the first time, a world-famous German scholar came here, and his naïve, kindly, perhaps somewhat unworldly manner had an extraordinary appeal for the local population. One could not find a better man to counter the hostile propaganda of lies, and to destroy the fable of German barbarism.’ And yet, the ambassador admitted, the local German community in Argentina had boycotted all Einstein-related events because its members objected to his pacifism. Several times in this period, Einstein seriously contemplated leaving Germany for good. Such personal tribulations gave him advance warning – ahead of most other Germans – of what to expect from the Nazi Party a decade later.

  The anti-relativity movement – dubbed the ‘Anti-relativity Company’ by Einstein – was started in 1920 by a graduate engineer and covert anti-Semite with journalistic and political ambitions and hidden financial backing, Paul Weyland. For scientific respectability Weyland recruited Ernst Gehrcke, an experimental physicist at the Reich Physical and Technical Institute and professor at the University of Berlin, who had been attempting to refute relativity in print since 1911. Neither Weyland nor Gehrcke was of much distinction. But they were soon supported by the physics Nobel laureate Lenard, who had won the prize in 1905. Even before the First World War, Lenard resented what he saw as insufficient British recognition of his experimental physics. During the war he apparently wrote to a physicist colleague fighting at the front ‘expressing his hope that the defeat of the English would make amends for their never having cited him decently’, noted Philip Ball in Serving the Reich, his history of German physics under the Nazis. Antagonistic by nature, Lenard became an anti-Semite after the war, and a follower of Hitler as early as 1924. ‘He invented the difference between “German” and “Jewish” physics,’ commented Born much later; and after 1933 (along with another Nobel laureate, Johannes Stark), he would set about cleansing German science of Jews. (In his book, German Physics, published in 1936, Lenard wrote: ‘In contrast to the intractable and solicitous desire for truth in the Aryan scientists, the Jew lacks to a striking degree any comprehension of truth.’) Einstein’s very public appreciation by English physicists, combined with his Jewishness, infuriated Lenard from the start. ‘This, however,’ Ball suggest
ed with black humour, ‘was no more than one could expect from a nation of vulgar materialists – Lenard would surely have sympathy with Napoleon’s remark about shopkeepers – who knew nothing of the heroic selfless Germanic Kultur.’

  During August 1920, the movement announced twenty meetings to be held in the biggest towns in Germany. With its headquarters in Berlin, Weyland and his sponsors hired the Berlin Philharmonic Hall for a set-piece opening demonstration against both relativity and its internationally celebrated author, sche-duled for 24 August. Einstein, and some distinguished physicist friends, made an unscheduled appearance by hiring a box to watch the proceedings – and be watched by the audience. ‘As the speakers went on, attacking relativity, omitting, distorting, unbalancing, appealing to the good Aryan common sense of their audience and invoking its members not to take such stuff seriously, the clown that lies not far below genius began to show itself,’ noted Einstein’s biographer Clark. Sometimes Einstein was observed to burst into laughter and clap his hands in mock applause. At the end of the meeting he told his friends: ‘That was most amusing.’ But behind this façade he was really furious, because Weyland and Gehrcke had accused him not only of scientific charlatanry and self-advertisement but had also implied that he had plagiarised the work of an obscure Pomeranian schoolmaster, Paul Gerber. For two days after the event, he first toyed with the notion of abandoning Germany, as was reported in the Berlin press. In an interview, he remarked: ‘I feel like a man lying in a good bed, but plagued by bedbugs.’

  Stung by the public meeting’s accusations, Einstein hit back with an article published on 27 August, headlined ‘My response. On the Anti-relativity Company’, in the columns of a liberal daily newspaper, the Berliner Tageblatt – an unprecedented forum for a respected university scientist in the more staid scientific world of those days. He began: