Einstein: His Life and Universe

  83. Overbye, 293; Aczel 1999, 117; archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/Ein steinEquations.html#intro. A variation of Wheeler’s quote is on p. 5 of the book he coauthored with Charles Misner and Kip Thorne, Gravitation.

  84. Greene 2004, 74.

  85. Einstein, “The Foundations of the General Theory of Relativity,”Annalen der Physik (Mar. 20, 1916), CPAE 6: 30.

  86. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Nov. 26, 1915; Einstein to Michele Besso, Nov. 30, 1915.

  87. Thorne, 119.

  88. For an analysis of Hilbert’s contribution, see Sauer 1999, 529–575; Sauer 2005, 577–590. Papers describing Hilbert’s revisions include Corry, Renn, and Stachel; Sauer 2005. For a flavor of the controversy, see also John Earman and Clark Glymour, “Einstein and Hilbert:Two Months in the History of General Relativity,”Archive for History of Exact Sciences (1978): 291; A. A. Logunov, M. A. Mestvirishvili, and V. A. Petrov, “How Were the Hilbert-Einstein Equations Discovered?,”Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk 174, no. 6 (June 2004): 663–678; Christopher Jon Bjerknes, Albert Einstein:The Incorrigible Plagiarist , available at home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/AEIPBook.htm; John Stachel, “Anti-Einstein Sentiment Surfaces Again,”Physics World , Apr. 2003, physicsweb.org/articles/review/16/4/2/1; Christopher Jon Bjerknes, “The Author of Albert Einstein: The Incorrigible Plagiarist Responds to John Stachel’s Personal Attack,” home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/Response.htm; Friedwardt Winterberg, “On ‘Belated Decision in the Hilbert-Einstein Priority Dispute,’ ”Zeitschrift fuer Naturforschung A, (Oct. 2004): 715–719, www.physics.unr.edu/faculty/winterberg/Hilbert-Einstein.pdf; David Rowe, “Einstein Meets Hilbert: At the Crossroads of Physics and Mathematics,”Physics in Perspective 3, no. 4 (Nov. 2001): 379.

  89. Reid, 142. Although this comment is cited in other secondary sources as well, Tilman Sauer of the Einstein Papers Project, who is writing a book on Hilbert, says he has never found a primary source for it.

  90. Einstein to David Hilbert, Dec. 20, 1915.

  91. Einstein to Arnold Sommerfeld, Dec. 9, 1915; Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Nov. 26, 1915.

  92. It is a contentious question as to whether general relativity actually succeeds in making all forms of motion and all frames of reference equivalent. It can certainly be said that two observers in nonuniform relative motion can each legitimately view himself as “at rest” and the other as affected by a gravitational field. That does not necessarily mean (as Einstein sometimes seemed to believe and at other times not) that two observers in nonuniform relative motion are always physically equivalent, especially when it comes to rotation. See, for example, Norton 1995b, 223–245; Janssen 2004, 8–12; Don Howard,“Point Coincidences and Pointer Coincidences,” in Goenner et al. 1999, 463; Robert Rynasiewicz, “Kretschmann’s Analysis of Covariance and Relativity Principles,” in Goenner et al. 1999, 431; Dennis Diek, “Another Look at General Covariance and the Equivalence of Reference Frames,”Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 37 (Mar. 2006): 174.

  93. Fölsing, 374; Clark, 252.

  94. Einstein to Michele Besso, Dec. 10, 1915.

  CHAPTER TEN: DIVORCE

  1. Michele Besso to Einstein, Nov. 29, 1915; Einstein to Michele Besso, Nov. 30, 1915; Neffe, 192.

  2. Hans Albert Einstein to Einstein, before Nov. 30, 1915; Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, Nov. 30, 1915.

  3. Michele Besso to Einstein, Nov. 30, 1915. See also Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Dec. 4, 1915: “The boy’s soul is being systematically poisoned to make sure that he doesn’t trust me.”

  4. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Dec. 1 and 10, 1915.

  5. Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, Dec. 23 and 25, 1915. Einstein wrote a similar postcard to Hans Albert on Dec. 18, 1915. Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, Mar. 11, 1916.

  6. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Nov. 26, 1915; Einstein to Michele Besso, Jan. 3, 1916.

  7. Overbye, 300.

  8. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Feb. 6, 1916.

  9. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Mar. 12, Apr. 1, 1916; Neffe, 194.

  10. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Apr. 1 and 8, 1916; Einstein to Michele Besso, Apr. 6, 1916; Michele Besso to Heinrich Zangger, Apr. 12, 1916, CPAE 8: 211 (German edition), footnote 2.

  11. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, Apr. 12 and 15, 1916. See also Einstein to Elsa Einstein, Apr. 10, 1916, in the sealed family correspondence released in 2006, CPAE 8: 211a: “My relationship with him is becoming very warm.”

  12. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, Apr. 21, 1916. See also Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, July 11, 1916: “Following an exceedingly nice Easter excursion, the subsequent days in Zurich brought on a complete chilling in a way that is not quite explicable to me.”

  13. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, July 11, 1916; Einstein to Michele Besso, July 14, 1916. See CPAE 8: 233 (German edition), footnote 4, for Zangger being the other person referred to in the letter.

  14. Pauline Einstein to Elsa Einstein, Aug. 6, 1916, in Overbye, 301.

  15. Einstein to Michele Besso, July 14, 1916; Michele Besso to Einstein, July 17, 1916; CPAE 8: 239 (German version), footnote 2.

  16. Einstein to Michele Besso, July 21, 1916, two letters.

  17. CPAE 8: 241 (German edition), footnotes 3, 4; Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, July 25, 1916; Heinrich Zangger to Michele Besso, July 31, 1916.

  18. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Aug. 18, 1916; Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, July 25, 1916. See also Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Mar. 10, 1917.

  19. Einstein to Michele Besso, Aug. 24, 1916; Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, Sept. 26, 1916.

  20. Hans Albert Einstein to Einstein, before Nov. 26, 1916.

  21. Einstein to Michele Besso, Oct. 31, 1916.

  22. Einstein to Helene Savi, Sept. 8, 1916.

  23. Einstein, “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity,” Mar. 20, 1916, CPAE 6: 30.

  24. Einstein, On the Special and the General Theory of Relativity , Dec. 1916, CPAE 6: 42, and many popular editions; Michelmore, 63. For an Internet version of Einstein’s book, see bartleby.com/173/or www.gutenberg.org/etext/5001.

  25. Einstein, “Principles of Research,” 1918, in Einstein 1954, 224.

  26. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Jan. 16, 1917; Clark, 241.

  27. Clark, 248; Highfield and Carter, 183; Overbye, 327; Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, Feb. 14, 1917; Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Dec. 6, 1917.

  28. Einstein to Michele Besso, Mar. 9, 1917; Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Feb. 16 and Mar. 10, 1917.

  29. Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, May 25, 1917.

  30. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, June 12, 1917.

  31. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Jan. 31, 1918.

  32. Mileva Mari to Einstein, Feb. 9, 1918, from family trust correspondence, CPAE 8: 461a, in supplement to vol. 10.

  33. Mileva Mari to Einstein, after Feb. 6, 1918. The Feb. 9 letter from the family trust correspondence, footnote 32 above, was unsealed in 2006. It clearly comes before the one that was dated “after Feb. 6” by the Einstein papers editors.

  34. Overbye, 338–339.

  35. Mileva Mari to Einstein, Apr. 22, 1918.

  36. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Apr. 15, 23, 26, 1918.

  37. Maja Winteler-Einstein to Einstein, Mar. 6, 1918, family foundation correspondence, unsealed in 2006, CPAE 8: 475b, in supplement to vol. 10.

  38. Einstein to Anna Besso, after Mar. 4, 1918.

  39. Anna Besso to Einstein, after Mar. 4, 1918.

  40. Mileva Mari to Einstein, before May 23, 1918; Einstein to Mileva Mari, June 4, 1918. See also Vero Besso (Anna and Michele’s son) to Einstein, Mar. 28, 1918, family trust correspondence: “The postcard you sent to my mother was really not nice . . . Her words would not have offended you in any way if you had heard them yourself; you would just have laughed and would have toned down their sense a little.”

  41. Mileva Mari to Einstein, Mar. 17, 1918: “My state of health is now such that I can lie down quite well at home; although I can’t get up, I can very well occupy myself quite a considerable amount with the children
, and this makes me very happy and contributes much to my well-being.” Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, May 8, 1918.

  42. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, May 8, 1918.

  43. Einstein to Max Born, after June 29, 1918; Einstein to Michele Besso, July 29, 1918.

  44. Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, after June 4, 1918.

  45. Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, after June 19, 1918.

  46. Hans Albert Einstein to Einstein, ca. July 17, 1918; Einstein to Eduard Einstein, ca. July 17, 1918.

  47. Edgar Meyer to Einstein, Aug. 11, 1918; Einstein to Michele Besso, Aug. 20, 1918.

  48. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Aug. 16, 1918; Einstein to Michele Besso, Sept. 6, 1918; Fölsing, 424.

  49. Reiser, 140.

  50. Nathan and Norden, 24. See also Rowe and Schulmann.

  51. Born 2005, 145–147. My description relies on Born’s recollection, which accompanies Einstein’s references to the event in a letter to Born, Sept. 7, 1944. See also Bolles, 3–11; Seelig 1956a, 178; Fölsing, 423; Levenson, 198.

  52. Einstein, “On the Need for a National Assembly,” Nov. 13, 1918, CPAE 8: 14; Nathan and Norden, 25. Otto Nathan says that Einstein delivered these remarks to the student radicals at the university. There is no evidence of this, and Born does not mention it. The newspapers report it as a New Fatherland League speech later that day. See CPAE 8: 14 (German edition), footnote 2.

  53. Einstein to Max Born, Sept. 7, 1944.

  54. Einstein, Deposition in Divorce, Dec. 23, 1918, CPAE 8: 676.

  55. Einstein to Mileva Mari and Hans Albert Einstein, Jan. 10, 1919; Einstein to Hedwig and Max Born, Jan. 15 and 19, 1919; Theodor Vetter to Einstein, Jan. 28, 1919. Vetter was the president of Zurich University, and he responded to Einstein’s complaint about a guard being posted at the door of the lectures.

  56. Divorce Decree, Feb. 14, 1919, CPAE 9: 6.

  57. Overbye, 273–280.

  58. Einstein to Georg Nicolai, ca. Jan. 22 and Feb. 28, 1917; Georg Nicolai to Einstein, Feb. 26, 1917.

  59. Ilse Einstein to Georg Nicolai, May 22, 1918, CPAE 8: 545.

  60. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, July 12 and 17, 1919.

  61. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, July 28, 1919.

  62. “Professor Einstein Here,”New York Times , Apr. 3, 1921.

  63. “Pronounced Sense of Humor,”New York Times , Dec. 22, 1936.

  64. Fölsing, 429; Highfield and Carter, 196.

  65. Reiser, 127; Marianoff, 15, 174. Both of these authors married daughters of Elsa. Reiser’s real name was Rudolph Kayser.

  66. Elias Tobenkin, “How Einstein, Thinking in Terms of the Universe, Lives from Day to Day,”New York Evening Post , Mar. 26, 1921.

  67. Frank 1947, 219; Marianoff, 1; Fölsing, 428; Reiser, 193.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: EINSTEIN’S UNIVERSE

  1. Overbye, 314; Einstein to Karl Schwarzschild, Jan. 9, 1916.

  2. Einstein, “On a Stationary System with Spherical Symmetry Consisting of Many Gravitating Masses,”Annals of Mathematics , 1939.

  3. For a description of the history, math, and science of black holes, see Miller 2005; Thorne, 121–139.

  4. Freeman Dyson in Robinson, 8–9.

  5. Einstein to Karl Schwarzschild, Jan. 9, 1916.

  6. CPAE vol. 8 brings together all of the correspondence between Einstein and de Sitter, with a good commentary on the dispute. Michel Janssen (uncredited author), “The Einstein–De Sitter–Weyl–Klein debate,” CPAE 8a (German edition), p. 351.

  7. Einstein to Willem de Sitter, Feb. 2, 1917.

  8. Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, Feb. 4, 1917.

  9. Einstein, “Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity,” Feb. 8, 1917, CPAE 6: 43.

  10. Einstein 1916, chapter 31.

  11. Clark, 271.

  12. For a delightful fictional tale along these lines (so to speak), see Edwin Abbott’s Flatland, first published in 1880 and available in many paperback editions.

  13. Edward W. Kold, “The Greatest Discovery Einstein Didn’t Make,” in Brock-man, 205.

  14. Lawrence Krauss and Michael Turner, “A Cosmic Conundrum,”Scientific American (Sept. 2004): 71; Aczel 1999, 155; Overbye, 321. Einstein’s famous blunder quote is from Gamow, 1970, 44.

  15. Overbye, 327.

  16. Einstein 1916, chapter 22.

  17. There is a wonderful reprint now available in paperback of Eddington’s classic book first published in 1920: Arthur Eddington, Space, Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Science Classics, 1995). Page 141 describes the Principe expedition. See also an award-winning article: Matthew Stanley, “An Expedition to Heal the Wounds of War: 1919 Eclipse and Eddington as Quaker Adventurer,”Isis 94 (2003): 57–89. A comprehensive account of all the tests is in Crelinsten.

  18. Douglas, 40; Aczel 1999, 121–137; Clark, 285–287; Fölsing, 436–437; Over-bye, 354–359.

  19. Douglas, 40.

  20. Einstein to Pauline Einstein, Sept. 5, 1919; Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, Sept. 12, 1919.

  21. Einstein to Pauline Einstein, Sept. 27, 1919; Bolles, 53.

  22. Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider, Reality and Scientific Truth: Discussions with Einstein, von Laue, and Planck (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1980), 74. She reports mistakenly that the telegram was from Eddington when it was from Lorentz. Einstein’s remark is famous, and is translated in many ways. The German sentence, as recorded by Rosenthal-Schnieder, is “Da könnt’ mir halt der Liebe Gott leid tun, die Theorie stimmt doch.”

  23. Max Planck to Einstein, Oct. 4, 1919; Einstein to Max Planck, Oct. 23, 1919.

  24. Zurich Physics Colloquium to Einstein, Oct. 11, 1919.

  25. Einstein to Zurich Physics Colloquium, Oct. 16, 1919.

  26. Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (1925; New York: Free Press, 1997), 13. See also pp. 29 and 113.

  27. The Times of London, Nov. 7, 1919; Pais 1982, 307; Fölsing, 443; Clark, 289.

  28. The Times of London, Nov. 7, 1919.

  29. Einstein 1949b, 31. Purchase of violin is in Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, Dec. 10, 1919.

  30. Douglas, 41; Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 117. (David Hilbert certainly would have been a third, though there were, of course, many others.) Chandrasekhar, who later worked with Eddington, told Jeremy Bernstein he heard this directly from Eddington; Bernstein 1973, 192.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: FAME

  1. Clark, 309. For a good overview, see David Rowe, “Einstein’s Rise to Fame,” Perimeter Institute, Oct. 15, 2005, www.mediasite.com.

  2. “Fabric of the Universe,”The Times of London, editorial, Nov. 7, 1919.

  3. New York Times , Nov. 9, 1919.

  4. Brian 1996, 100, from Meyer Berger, The Story of the New York Times (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1951), 251–252.

  5. New York Times , Nov. 9, 1919.

  6. The New York Times deserves praise, of course, for taking the theory seriously.

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

  8. Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, Dec. 15, 1919.

  9. Einstein to Marcel Grossmann, Sept. 12, 1920. Einstein went on to make the point to Grossmann that the issue, amid rising nationalism and antiSemitism, had become politicized: “Their conviction is determined by what political party they belong to.”

  10. Leopold Infeld, “To Albert Einstein on His 75th Birthday,” in Goldsmith et al., 24.

  11. New York Times , Dec. 4 and 21, 1919.

  12. The Times of London, Nov. 28, 1919.

  13. Paul Ehrenfest to Einstein, Nov. 24, 1919; Maja Einstein to Einstein, Dec. 10, 1919.

  14. Einstein to Max Born, Dec. 8, 1919; Einstein to Ludwig Hopf, Feb. 2, 1920.

  15. C. P. Snow, “On Einstein,” in The Variety of Men (New York: Scribner’s, 1966), 108.

  16. Freeman J. Dyson, “Wise Man,”New York Review of Bo
oks , Oct. 20, 2005.

  17. Clark, 296.

  18. Born 2005, 41.

  19. Hedwig Born to Einstein, Oct. 7, 1920.

  20. Max Born to Einstein, Oct. 13, 1920.

  21. Max Born to Einstein, Oct. 28, 1920.

  22. Einstein to Max Born, Oct. 26, 1920. Einstein wrote to Maurice Solovine, when the book actually appeared a few months later, that Moszkowski was “abominable” and “wretched” and that “he committed a forgery” by using some of Einstein’s letters in an unauthorized way to imply that Einstein had written an introduction to the book. Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Mar. 8 and 19, 1921. He was also dismayed when he heard that Hans Albert had bought it, and said, “I was unable to prevent its publication, and it has caused me a lot of grief ”; Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, June 18, 1921. See also Highfield and Carter, 199.