Einstein: His Life and Universe

  78. “The Relative Importance of Einstein’s Wife,”The Economist , Feb. 24, 1990; Evan H. Walker, “Did Einstein Espouse His Spouse’s Ideas?”, Physics Today , Feb. 1989; Ellen Goodman, “Out from the Shadows of Great Men,”Boston Globe , Mar. 15, 1990;Einstein’s Wife , PBS, 2003, www.pbs.org/opb/einsteins wife/index.htm; Holton 2000, 191; Robert Schulmann and Gerald Holton, “Einstein’s Wife,” letter to the New York Times Book Review, Oct. 8, 1995; Highfield and Carter, 108–114; Svenka Savi, “The Road to Mileva Mari-Einstein,” www.zenskestudie.edu.yu/wgsact/e-library/e-lib0027.html#_ftn1; Christopher Bjerknes, Albert Einstein: The Incorrigible Plagiarist , home.com cast.net/~xtxinc/CIPD.htm; Alberto Martínez, “Arguing about Einstein’s Wife,”Physics World , Apr. 2004, physicsweb.org/articles/world/17/4/2/1; Alberto Martínez, “Handling Evidence in History: The Case of Einstein’s Wife,”School Science Review , Mar. 2005, 51–52; Zackheim, 20; Andrea Gabor, Einstein’s Wife: Work and Marriage in the Lives of Five Great Twentieth-Century Women (New York: Viking, 1995); John Stachel, “Albert Einstein and Mileva Mari: A Collaboration That Failed to Develop,” in H. Prycior et al., eds., Creative Couples in Science (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 207–219; Stachel 2002a, 25–37.

  79. Michelmore, 45.

  80. Holton 2000, 191.

  81. Einstein to Conrad Habicht, June 30–Sept. 22, 1905 (almost certainly in early September, after returning from vacation and getting to work on the E=mc 2paper).

  82. Einstein, “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on Its Energy Content?,”Annalen der Physik 18 (1905), received Sept. 27, 1905, CPAE 2: 24.

  83. For an insightful look at the background and ramifications of Einstein’s equation, see Bodanis. Bodanis also has a useful website that includes further details: davidbodanis.com/books/emc2/notes/relativity/sigdev/index.html. The calculation about the mass of a raisin is in Wolfson, 156.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: THE HAPPIEST THOUGHT

  1. Maja Einstein, xxi.

  2. Fölsing, 202; Max Planck, Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949), 42.

  3. More precisely, the definition that Richard Feynman uses in his Lectures on Physics (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1989), 19-1 is, “Action in physics has a precise meaning. It is the time average of the kinetic energy of a particle minus the potential energy. The principle of least action then states that a particle will travel along the path that minimizes the difference between its kinetic and potential energies.”

  4. Fölsing, 203; Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Apr. 27, 1906; Einstein tribute to Planck, 1913, CPAE 2: 267.

  5. Max Planck to Einstein, July 6, 1907; Hoffmann 1972, 83.

  6. Max Laue to Einstein, June 2, 1906.

  7. Hoffmann 1972, 84; Seelig 1956a, 78; Fölsing, 212.

  8. Arnold Sommerfeld to Hendrik Lorentz, Dec. 26, 1907, in Diana Kormos Buchwald, “The First Solvay Conference,” in Einstein in Context (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 64. Sommerfeld is referring to the German physicist Emil Cohn, an expert in electrodynamics.

  9. Jakob Laub to Einstein, Mar. 1, 1908.

  10. Swiss Patent Office to Einstein, Mar. 13, 1906.

  11. Mileva Mari to Helene Savi, Dec. 1906.

  12. Einstein, “A New Electrostatic Method for the Measurement of Small Quantities of Electricity,” Feb. 13, 1908, CPAE 2: 48; Overbye, 156.

  13. Einstein to Paul and/or Conrad Habicht, Aug. 16, Sept. 2, 1907, Mar. 17, June, July 4, Oct. 12, Oct. 22, 1908, Jan. 18, Apr. 15, Apr. 28, Sept. 3, Nov. 5, Dec. 17, 1909; Overbye, 156–158.

  14. Einstein, “On the Inertia of Energy Required by the Relativity Principle,” May 14, 1907, CPAE 2: 45; Einstein to Johannes Stark, Sept. 25, 1907.

  15. Einstein to Bern Canton Education Department, June 17, 1907, CPAE 5: 46; Fölsing, 228.

  16. Einstein 1922c.

  17. Einstein, “Fundamental Ideas and Methods of Relativity Theory,” 1920, unpublished draft of a paper for Nature magazine, CPAE 7: 31. The phrase he used was “glücklichste Gedanke meines Lebens.”

  18. “Einstein Expounds His New Theory,”New York Times , Dec. 3, 1919.

  19. Bernstein 1996a, 10, makes the point that Newton’s thought experiments involving a falling apple and Einstein’s involving an elevator “were liberating insights that revealed unexpected depths in commonplace experiences.”

  20. Einstein 1916, chapter 20.

  21. Einstein, “The Fundaments of Theoretical Physics,”Science , May 24, 1940, in Einstein 1954, 329. See also Sartori, 255.

  22. Einstein first used the phrase in a paper he wrote for the Annalen der Physik in Feb. 1912, “The Speed of Light and the Statics of the Gravitational Field,” CPAE 4: 3.

  23. Janssen 2002.

  24. The gravitational field would have to be static and homogeneous and the acceleration would have to be uniform and rectilinear.

  25. Einstein, “On the Relativity Principle and the Conclusions Drawn from It,” Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität and Elektronik, Dec. 4, 1907, CPAE 2: 47; Einstein to Willem Julius, Aug. 24, 1911.

  26. Einstein to Marcel Grossmann, Jan. 3, 1908.

  27. Einstein to the Zurich Council of Education, Jan. 20, 1908; Fölsing, 236.

  28. Einstein to Paul Gruner, Feb. 11, 1908; Alfred Kleiner to Einstein, Feb. 8, 1908.

  29. Flückiger, 117–121; Fölsing, 238; Maja Einstein, xxi.

  30. Alfred Kleiner to Einstein, Feb. 8, 1908.

  31. Friedrich Adler to Viktor Adler, June 19, 1908; Rudolph Ardelt, Friedrich Adler (Vienna: österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1984), 165–194; Seelig 1956a, 95; Fölsing, 247; Overbye, 161.

  32. Frank 1947, 75; Einstein to Michele Besso, Apr. 29, 1917.

  33. Einstein to Jakob Laub, May 19, 1909; Reiser, 72.

  34. Friedrich Adler to Viktor Adler, July 1, 1908; Einstein to Jakob Laub, July 30, 1908.

  35. Einstein to Jakob Laub, May 19, 1909.

  36. Alfred Kleiner, report to the faculty, Mar. 4, 1909; Seelig 1956a, 166; Pais 1982, 185; Fölsing, 249.

  37. Alfred Kleiner, report to faculty, Mar. 4, 1909.

  38. Einstein to Jakob Laub, May 19, 1909.

  39. Einstein, verse in the album of Anna Schmid, Aug. 1899, CPAE 1: 49.

  40. Einstein to Anna Meyer-Schmid, May 12, 1909.

  41. Mileva Mari to Georg Meyer, May 23, 1909; Einstein to Georg Meyer, June 7, 1909; Einstein to Erika Schaerer-Meyer, July 27, 1951; Highfield and Carter, 125; Overbye, 164.

  42. Mileva Mari to Helene Savi, late 1909, Sept. 3, 1909, in Popovi, 26–27.

  43. Seelig 1956a, 92; Dukas and Hoffmann, 5–7.

  44. Einstein to Arnold Sommerfeld, Jan. 14, 1908. I am grateful to Douglas Stone of Yale, who helped me with Einstein’s early work on the quanta.

  45. Einstein lecture in Salzburg, “On the Development of Our Views Concerning the Nature and Constitution of Radiation,” Sept. 21, 1909, CPAE 2: 60; Schilpp, 154; Armin Hermann, The Genesis of the Quantum Theory (Cam-bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1971), 66–69.

  46. Einstein to Arnold Sommerfeld, July 1910. As Einstein’s friend Banesh Hoffmann quipped in The Strange Story of the Quantum (New York: Dover, 1959), “They could but make the best of it, and went around with woebegone faces sadly complaining that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays they must look upon light as a wave; on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, as a particle. On Sundays they simply prayed.”

  47. Discussion following Sept. 21, 1909, lecture in Salzburg, CPAE 2: 61.

  48. Einstein to Jakob Laub, Nov. 4 and 11, 1910.

  49. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, May 20, 1912.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: THE WANDERING PROFESSOR

  1. The best and original work about Duhem’s influence on Einstein is by Don Howard. See Howard 1990a, 2004.

  2. Friedrich Adler to Viktor Adler, Oct. 28, 1909, in Fölsing, 258.

  3. Seelig 1956a, 97.

  4. Seelig 1956a, 113.

  5. Seelig 1956a, 99–104; Brian 1996, 76.

  6. Seelig 1956a, 102; Einstein t
o Arnold Sommerfeld, Jan. 19, 1909.

  7. Overbye, 185; Miller 2001, 229–231.

  8. Hans Albert Einstein interview, Gazette and Daily (York, Pa.), Sept. 20, 1948; Seelig 1956a, 104; Highfield and Carter, 129.

  9. Einstein to Pauline Einstein, Apr. 28, 1910.

  10. Student petition, University of Zurich, June 23, 1910, CPAE 5: 210.

  11. Repeated in lecture by Max Planck, Columbia University, spring 1909; Pais 1982, 192; Fölsing, 271.

  12. Einstein to Jakob Laub, Aug. 27, Oct. 11, 1910; Count Karl von Stürgkh to Einstein, Jan. 13, 1911; Frank 1947, 98–101; Clark, 172–176; Fölsing, 271–273; Pais 1982, 192.

  13. Frank 1947, 104. Frank has the visit occuring in 1913, but in fact it occurred in Sept. 1910 when Einstein was in Vienna for his official interview about the Prague professorship. See notes in CPAE 5 (German version), p. 625.

  14. Einstein to Hendrik Lorentz, Jan. 27, 1911.

  15. Einstein to Jakob Laub, May 19, 1909.

  16. Einstein to Hendrik Lorentz, Feb. 15, 1911.

  17. Pais 1982, 8; Brian 1996, 78; Klein 1970a, 303. The Ehrenfest description is from a draft of his eulogy for Lorentz.

  18. Einstein, “Address at the Grave of Lorentz” (1928), in Einstein 1954, 73; Einstein, “Message for Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Lorentz” (1953), in Einstein 1954, 73. See also Bucky, 114.

  19. Mileva Mari to Helene Savi, Jan. 1911, in Popovi, 30; Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Apr. 7, 1911.

  20. Frank 1947, 98.

  21. Max Brod, The Redemption of Tycho Brahe (New York: Knopf, 1928); Seelig 1956a, 121; Clark, 179; Highfield and Carter, 138.

  22. Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, Jan. 26, Feb. 12, 1912.

  23. Einstein, “Paul Ehrenfest: In Memoriam,” written in 1934 for a Leiden almanac and reprinted in Einstein 1950a, 132.

  24. Klein 1970a, 175–178; Seelig 1956a, 125; Fölsing, 294; Clark, 194; Brian 1996, 83; Highfield and Carter, 142.

  25. Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, Mar. 10, 1912; Einstein to Alfred Kleiner, Apr. 3, 1912; Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, Apr. 25, 1912. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Mar. 17, 1912: “I would like to see him my successor here. But his fanatical atheism makes that impossible.” Zangger’s letter was part of material released in 2006 and is published as CPAE 5: 374a in a supplement to vol. 10.

  26. Dirk van Delft, “Albert Einstein in Leiden,”Physics Today , Apr. 2006, 57.

  27. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Nov. 7, 1911.

  28. An invitation from Ernest Solvay, June 9, 1911, CPAE 5: 269; Einstein to Michele Besso, Sept. 11, Oct. 21, 1911.

  29. Einstein, “On the Present State of the Problem of Specific Heats,” Nov. 3, 1911, CPAE 3: 26; the quote about “really exist in nature” appears on p. 421 of the English translation of vol. 3.

  30. Discussion following Einstein lecture, Nov. 3, 1911, CPAE 3: 27.

  31. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Nov. 7 and 15, 1911.

  32. Einstein to Michele Besso, Dec. 26, 1911.

  33. Bernstein 1996b, 125.

  34. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Nov. 7, 1911.

  35. Einstein to Marie Curie, Nov. 23, 1911. (This letter is included at the beginning of CPAE vol. 8, not vol. 5, where it would have fit chronologically had this letter been available when that volume was published.)

  36. Mileva Mari to Einstein, Oct. 4, 1911.

  37. Overbye, 201. Einstein’s quote is from a letter to Carl Seelig, May 5, 1952.

  38. Reiser, 126.

  39. Highfield and Carter, 145.

  40. Einstein to Elsa Einstein Löwenthal, Apr. 30, 1912; regarding her keeping the letters, CPAE 5: 389 (German edition), footnote 12.

  41. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, Apr. 30, 1912; Einstein “scratch notebook,” CPAE 3 (German edition), appendix A; CPAE 5: 389 (German edition), footnote 4.

  42. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, May 7 and 12, 1912.

  43. Einstein to Michele Besso, May 13, 1911; Einstein to Hans Tanner, Apr. 24, 1911; Einstein to Alfred and Clara Stern, Mar. 17, 1912.

  44. Mileva Mari to Helene Savi, Dec. 1912, in Popovi, 106.

  45. Willem Julius to Einstein, Sept. 17, 1911; Einstein to Willem Julius, Sept. 22, 1911.

  46. Heinrich Zangger to Ludwig Forrer, Oct. 9, 1911; CPAE 5: 291 (German edition), footnote 2; CPAE 5: 305 (German edition), footnote 2.

  47. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Nov. 15, 1911.

  48. Einstein to Willem Julius, Nov. 16, 1911.

  49. Marie Curie, letter of recommendation, Nov. 17, 1911; Seelig 1956a, 134; Fölsing, 291; CPAE 5: 308 (German edition), footnote 3.

  50. Henri Poincaré, letter of recommendation, Nov. 1911; Seelig 1956a, 135; Galison, 300; Fölsing, 291; CPAE 5: 308 (German edition), footnote 3.

  51. Einstein to Alfred and Clara Stern, Feb. 2, 1912.

  52. Articles appeared in Vienna’s weekly paper Montags-Revue on July 29, 1912, and Prague’s Prager Tagblatt on May 26 and Aug. 5, 1912. CPAE 5: 414 (German edition), footnotes 2, 3, 11; Einstein statement, Aug. 3, 1912.

  53. Einstein to Ludwig Hopf, June 12, 1912.

  54. Overbye, 234, 243; Highfield and Carter, 153; Seelig 1956a, 112.

  55. In a letter from Einstein to Elsa Einstein, July 30, 1914, he recalls how she kidded him for including his new address in the May 7, 1912, letter in which he declared they must quit corresponding.

  56. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, ca. Mar. 14, 1913.

  57. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, Mar. 23, 1913.

  58. Seelig 1956a, 244; Levenson, 2; CPAE 5: 451 (German edition), footnote 2; Clark, 213; Overbye, 248; Fölsing, 329. The editors of the collected papers use the white handkerchief, based on a letter by Nernst’s daughter, while other accounts use the red rose, based on the account that Seelig was given.

  59. Max Planck, Walther Nernst, Heinrich Rubens, and Emil Warburg to the Prussian Academy, June 12, 1913, CPAE 5: 445.

  60. Seelig 1956a, 148.

  61. Einstein to Jakob Laub, July 22, 1913.

  62. Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, late Nov. 1913.

  63. Einstein to Hendrik Lorentz, Aug. 14, 1913.

  64. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, June 27, 1914, CPAE 8: 5a, released in 2006 and published as a supplement to CPAE vol. 10.

  65. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, July 14, 19, before July 24, and Aug. 13, 1913.

  66. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, after Aug. 11, 1913.

  67. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, after Aug. 11 and Aug. 11, 1913.

  68. Eve Curie, Madame Curie (New York: Doubleday, 1937), 284; Fölsing, 325; Highfield and Carter, 157.

  69. The baptism took place at the St. Nicholas Church in Novi Sad on Sept. 21, 1913. Hans Albert Einstein to Dord Krstic, Nov. 5, 1970; Elizabeth Einstein, 97; Highfield and Carter, 159; Overbye, 255; Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Sept. 20, 1913; Seelig 1956a, 113.

  70. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, Oct. 10, 1913.

  71. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, Oct. 16, 1913.

  72. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, before Dec. 2, 1913.

  73. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, after Dec. 21 and Aug. 11, 1913.

  74. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, after Dec. 21, 1913.

  75. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, after Feb. 11, 1914; Lisbeth Hurwitz diary, cited in Overbye, 265.

  76. Marianoff, 1; Einstein to Mileva Mari, Apr. 2, 1914.

  77. Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, ca. Apr. 10, 1914; Paul Ehrenfest to Einstein, ca. Apr. 10, 1914; Highfield and Carter, 167.

  78. Whitrow, 20.

  79. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, June 27, 1914, CPAE 8: 16a, made available in 2006 and printed in a supplement to vol. 10.

  80. Einstein, Memorandum to Mileva Mari, ca. July 18, 1914, CPAE 8: 22. See also appendix, CPAE 8b (German edition), p. 1032, for a memo from Anna Besso-Winteler to Heinrich Zangger, Mar. 1918, about the Einstein breakup.

  81. Einstein to Mileva Mari, ca. July 18 and July 18, 1914.

  82. CPAE 8a: 26 (German edition), footnote 3; memo from Anna BessoWinteler to Heinrich Zangger, Mar. 1918, CPAE 8b (German edition), p. 1032; Overbye,
268.

  83. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, July 26, 1914.

  84. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, after July 26, 1914.