Einstein: His Life and Universe

  21. “Einstein Will Urge Amity with Germany,”New York Times , Jan. 8, 1933.

  22. Nathan and Norden, 208; Clark, 552.

  23. “Einstein’s Address on World Situation” (text of speech) and “Einstein Traces Slump to Machine,”New York Times , Jan. 24, 1933.

  24. Fölsing, 659.

  25. Einstein to Margarete Lebach, Feb. 27, 1933, AEA 50-834.

  26. Evelyn Seeley, interview with Einstein, New York World-Telegram , Mar. 11, 1933; Brian 1996, 243.

  27. Marianoff, 142–144.

  28. Michelmore, 180. Michelmore got much of his material from Hans Albert Einstein, though this quote may have been exaggerated.

  29. Einstein, Statement against the Hitler regime, Mar. 22, 1933, AEA 28-235.

  30. Einstein to the Prussian Academy, Mar. 28, 1933, AEA 36–55.

  31. Max Planck to Einstein, Mar. 31, 1933.

  32. Max Planck to Heinrich von Ficker, Mar. 31, 1933, cited in Fölsing, 663.

  33. Prussian Academy declaration, Apr. 1, 1933. The exchanges are reprinted in Einstein 1954, 205–209.

  34. Einstein to Prussian Academy, Apr. 5, 1933.

  35. Frank 1947, 232.

  36. Prussian Academy to Einstein, Apr. 7 and 13, 1933; Einstein to Prussian Academy, Apr. 12, 1933.

  37. Max Planck to Einstein, Mar. 31, 1933, AEA 19-389; Einstein to Max Planck, Apr. 6, 1933, AEA 19-392.

  38. Einstein to Max Born, May 30, 1933, AEA 8-192; Max Born to Einstein, June 2, 1933, AEA 8-193.

  39. Einstein to Fritz Haber, May 19, 1933, AEA 12-378. For a good profile of the Einstein-Haber relationship and this final episode, see Stern, 156–160. Also very useful is John Cornwall, Hitler’s Scientists (New York: Viking, 2003), 137–139.

  40. Fritz Haber to Einstein, Aug. 1, 1933, AEA 385; Einstein to Fritz Haber, Aug. 8, 1933, AEA 12-388.

  41. Einstein to Willem de Sitter, Apr. 5, 1933, AEA 20-575; Frank 1947, 232; Clark, 573.

  42. Vallentin, 231.

  43. Frank 1947, 240–242.

  44. Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Apr. 23, 1933, AEA 21-223.

  45. Einstein to Paul Langevin, May 5, 1933, AEA 15-394.

  46. “Einstein Will Go to Madrid,”New York Times , Apr. 11, 1933; Abraham Flexner to Einstein, Apr. 13, 1933, AEA 38-23; Pais 1982, 493.

  47. Abraham Flexner to Einstein, Apr. 26 and 28, 1933, AEA 38-25, 38-26.

  48. “Einstein Lists Contracts; Princeton, Paris, Madrid, Oxford Lectures Are Only Engagements,”New York Times , Aug. 5, 1933; Einstein to Frederick Lindemann, May 1, 1933, AEA 16-372.

  49. Hannoch Gutfreund, “Albert Einstein and Hebrew University,” in Renn 2005d, 318.

  50. Einstein to Fritz Haber, Aug. 9, 1933, AEA 37-109; Einstein to Max Born, May 30, 1933, AEA 8-192.

  51. Jewish Chronicle , Apr. 8, 1933; Chaim Weizmann to Einstein, Apr. 3, 1933, AEA 33-425; Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, June 14, 1933, AEA 10-255.

  52. Einstein to Herbert Samuel, Apr. 15, 1933, AEA 21-17; Einstein to Chaim Weizmann, June 9, 1933, AEA 33-435.

  53. “Weizmann Scores Einstein’s Stand,”New York Times , June 30, 1933.

  54. “Albert Einstein Definitely Takes Post at Hebrew University,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 3, 1933; Abraham Flexner to Elsa Einstein, July 19, 1933, AEA 33-033; “Einstein Accepts Chair: Dr. Weizmann Announces He Has Made Peace with Hebrew University in Jerusalem,”New York Times , July 4, 1933.

  55. Einstein to the Rev. Johannes B. Th. Hugenholtz, July 1, 1933, AEA 50-320.

  56. Nathan and Norden, 225.

  57. The queen’s name has been spelled Elizabeth in many books, but as carved on her statue and national monument in Brussels, and in most official sources, it is Elisabeth.

  58. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, Nov. 1, 1930, uncatalogued new material provided to author.

  59. Einstein to King Albert I of Belgium, Nov. 14, 1933, in Nathan and Norden, 230.

  60. Einstein to Alfred Nahon, July 20, 1933, AEA 51-227.

  61. New York Times , Sept. 10, 1933.

  62. Einstein to E. Lagot, Aug. 28, 1933, AEA 50-477.

  63. Einstein to Lord Ponsonby, Aug. 28, 1933, AEA 51-400.

  64. Einstein to A. V. Frick, Sept. 9, 1933, AEA 36-567.

  65. Einstein to G. C. Heringa, Sept. 11, 1933, AEA 50-199.

  66. Einstein to P. Bernstein, Apr. 5, 1934, AEA 49-276.

  67. Romain Rolland, Sept. 1933 diary entry, in Nathan and Norden, 232.

  68. Michele Besso to Einstein, Sept. 18, 1932, AEA 7-130; Einstein to Michele Besso, Oct. 21, 1932, AEA 7-370.

  69. Einstein to Frederick Lindemann, May 9, 1933, AEA 16-377.

  70. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, July 21, 1933, AEA 143-250.

  71. Locker-Lampson speech, House of Commons, July 26, 1933; “Einstein a Briton Soon: Home Secretary’s Certificate Preferred to Palestine Citizenship,”New York Times , July 29, 1933; Marianoff, 159.

  72. New York World Telegram , Sept. 19, 1933, in Nathan and Norden, 234.

  73. “Dr. Einstein Denies Communist Leanings,”New York Times , Sept. 16, 1933; “Professor Einstein’s Political Views,”Times of London, Sept. 16, 1933, in Brian 1996, 251.

  74. Einstein, Appreciation of Paul Ehrenfest, written in 1934 for a Leiden almanac and reprinted in Einstein 1950a, 236.

  75. Clark, 600–605; Marianoff, 160–163; Jacob Epstein, Let There Be Sculpture (London: Michael Joseph, 1940), 78.

  76. Dukas and Hoffmann, 56.

  77. Einstein, “Civilization and Science,” Royal Albert Hall, Oct. 3, 1933;Times of London, Oct. 4, 1933; Calaprice, 198; Clark, 610–611. Clark’s version is more faithful to the way the speech was given than the written version, which had two references to Germany that Einstein, diplomatically, decided to omit.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: AMERICA

  1. Abraham Flexner telegram to Einstein, Oct. 1933, AEA 38-049; Abraham Flexner to Einstein, Oct. 13, 1933, AEA 38-050.

  2. “Einstein Arrives; Pleads for Quiet / Whisked from Liner by Tug at Quarantine,”New York Times , Oct. 18, 1933.

  3. “Einstein Views Quarters,”New York Times , Oct. 18, 1933; Rev. John Lampe interview, in Clark, 614; “Einstein to Princeton,”Time , Oct. 30, 1933.

  4. Brian 1996, 251.

  5. “Einstein Has Musicale,”New York Times , Nov. 10, 1933. The sketches that Einstein made for Seidel are now in the Judah Magnes Museum, endowed by the president of Hebrew University with whom Einstein fought.

  6. Bucky, 150.

  7. Thomas Torrance,“Einstein and God,” Center for Theological Inquiry, Princeton, ctinquiry.org/publications/reflections_volume_1/torrance.htm. Torrance says a friend related the tale to him.

  8. Eleanor Drorbaugh interview with Jamie Sayen, in Sayen, 64, 74.

  9. Sayen, 69; Bucky, 111; Fölsing, 732.

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

  11. Brian 1996, 265.

  12. Abraham Flexner to Einstein, Oct. 13, 1933, in Regis, 34.

  13. “Einstein, the Immortal, Shows Human Side,” (Newark) Sunday Ledger, Nov. 12, 1933.

  14. Abraham Flexner to Elsa Einstein, Nov. 14, 1933, AEA 38-055.

  15. Abraham Flexner to Elsa Einstein, Nov. 15, 1933, AEA 38-059. Flexner also wrote to Herbert Maass, an Institute trustee, on Nov. 14, 1933: “I am beginning to weary a little of this daily necessity of ‘sitting down’ on Einstein and his wife. They do not know America. They are the merest children, and they are extremely difficult to advise and control. You have no idea the barrage of publicity I have intercepted.” Batterson, 152.

  16. Abraham Flexner to Einstein, Nov. 15, 1933, AEA 38-061.

  17. “Fiddling for Friends,”Time , Jan. 29, 1934; “Einstein in Debut as Violinist Here,”New York Times , Jan. 18, 1934.

  18. Stephen Wise to Judge Julian Mack, Oct. 20, 1933.

  19. Col. Marvin MacIntyre report to the White House Social Bureau, Dec. 7, 1933, AEA 33-131; Abraham Flexner to Franklin Roosevelt, Nov. 3, 1933; Einstein to Eleanor Roosevelt, Nov. 21, 1933, AEA 33-129; E
leanor Roosevelt to Einstein, Dec. 4, 1933, AEA 33-130; Elsa Einstein to Eleanor Roosevelt, Jan. 16, 1934, AEA 33-132; Einstein to Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, Jan. 25, 1934, AEA 33-134; “Einstein Chats about Sea,”New York Times , Jan. 26, 1934.

  20. Einstein to Board of Trustees of the IAS, Dec. 1–31, 1933.

  21. Johanna Fantova, Journal of conversations with Einstein, Jan. 23, 1954, in Calaprice, 354.

  22. Einstein to Max Born, Mar. 22, 1934; Erwin Schrödinger to Frederick Linde-mann, Mar. 29, 1934, Jan. 22, 1935.

  23. Einstein to Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, Nov. 20, 1933, AEA 32-369. The line is usually translated as “puny demigods on stilts.” The word Einstein uses, stelzbeinig, means stiff-legged, as if the legs were wooden stilts. It has nothing to do with height. Instead, it evokes the gait of a peacock.

  24. Einstein, “The Negro Question,”Pageant , Jan. 1946. In this essay, he was juxtaposing the generally democratic social tendency of Americans to the way they treated blacks. That became more of an issue for him than it was back in 1934, as will be noted later in this book.

  25. Bucky, 45; “Einstein Farewell,”Time , Mar. 14, 1932.

  26. Vallentin, 235. See also Elsa Einstein to Hertha Einstein (wife of music historian Alfred Einstein, a distant cousin), Feb. 24, 1934, AEA 37-693: “The place is charming, altogether different from the rest of America . . . Here everything is tinged with Englishness—downright Oxford style.”

  27. “Einstein Cancels Trip Abroad,”New York Times , Apr. 2, 1934.

  28. Marianoff, 178. Other sources report that Ilse’s ashes, or at least some of them, were brought to a cemetery in Holland, to a place chosen by the widower Rudi Kayser.

  29. This entire story is from an interview given by the Blackwoods’ son James to Denis Brian on Sept. 7, 1994, and is detailed in Brian 1996, 259–263.

  30. Ibid. See also James Blackwood, “Einstein in the Rear-View Mirror,”Princeton History , Nov. 1997.

  31. “Einstein Inventor of Camera Device,”New York Times , Nov. 27, 1936.

  32. Bucky, 5. Bucky’s book is written, in part, as a running conversation, though there are sections that actually draw from other Einstein interviews and writings.

  33. Bucky, 16–21.

  34. New York Times , Aug. 4, 1935; Brian 1996, 265, 280.

  35. Vallentin, 237.

  36. Brian 1996, 268.

  37. Fölsing, 687; Brian 1996, 279.

  38. Calaprice, 251.

  39. Bucky, 25.

  40. Clark, 622.

  41. Pais 1982, 454.

  42. Jon Blackwell, “The Genius Next Door,”The Trentonian , www.capitalcentury.com/1933.html; Seelig 1956a, 193; Sayen, 78; Brian 1996, 330.

  43. Einstein to Barbara Lee Wilson, Jan. 7, 1943, AEA 42-606; Dukas and Hoff-mann, 8; “Einstein Solves Problem That Baffled Boys,”New York Times , June 11, 1937.

  44. “Einstein Gives Advice to a High School Boy,”New York Times , Apr. 14, 1935; Sayen, 76.

  45. Elsa Einstein to Leon Watters, Dec. 10, 1935, AEA 52-210.

  46. Vallentin, 238.

  47. Bucky, 13.

  48. Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, Jan. 4, 1937, AEA 75-926.

  49. Hoffmann 1972, 231.

  50. Einstein, “Lens-like Action of a Star by Deviation of Light in the Gravitational Field,”Science (Dec. 1936); Einstein with Nathan Rosen, “On Gravitational Waves,”Journal of the Franklin Institute (Jan. 1937). The gravitational wave paper was originally submitted to Physical Review. Editors there sent it to a referee, who noted flaws. Einstein was outraged, withdrew the paper, and had it published instead by the Franklin Institute. He then realized he was wrong after all (after the anonymous referee indirectly let him know), and he and Rosen juggled many modifications, just as Elsa was dying. Daniel Kinneflick uncovered the details of this saga and provides a fascinating acount in “Einstein versus the Physical Review,”Physics Today (Sept. 2005).

  51. Einstein to Max Born, Feb. 1937, in Born 2005, 128.

  52. Einstein, “The Causes of the Formation of Meanders in the Courses of Rivers and of the So-Called Baer’s Law,” Jan. 7, 1926.

  53. “Dr. Einstein Welcomes Son to America,”New York Times , Oct. 13, 1937.

  54. Bucky, 107.

  55. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Dec. 21, 1937, AEA 75-938.

  56. Einstein to Frieda Einstein, Apr. 11, 1937, AEA 75-929.

  57. Robert Ettema and Cornelia F. Mutel, “Hans Albert Einstein in South Carolina,”Water Resources and Environmental History , June 27, 2004; “Einstein’s Son Asks Citizenship,”New York Times , Dec. 22, 1938. He applied for citizenship on Dec. 21, 1938, at the U.S. District Court in Greenville, S.C. Some biographies have him living in Greensboro, N.C., at the time, but that is incorrect.

  58. Einstein to Hans Albert and Frieda Einstein, Jan. 1939; James Shannon,“Einstein in Greenville,”The Beat (Greenville, S.C.), Nov. 17, 2001.

  59. Highfield and Carter, 242.

  60. “Hitler Is ‘Greatest’ in Princeton Poll: Freshmen Put Einstein Second and Chamberlain Third,”New York Times , Nov. 28, 1939. The story reports that this was for the second year in a row.

  61. Collier’s , Nov. 26, 1938; Einstein 1954, 191.

  62. Sayen, 344; “Einstein Fiddles,”Time , Feb. 3, 1941. Time reported of a little concert in Princeton for the American Friends Service Committee: “Einstein proved that he could play a slow melody with feeling, turn a trill with elegance, jigsaw on occasion. The audience applauded warmly. Fiddler Einstein smiled his broad and gentle smile, glanced at his watch in fourth-dimensional worriment, played his encore, peered at the watch again, retired.”

  63. Jerome, 77.

  64. Einstein to Isaac Don Levine, Dec. 10, 1934, AEA 50-928; Isaac Don Levine, Eyewitness to History (New York: Hawthorne, 1973), 171.

  65. Sidney Hook to Einstein, Feb. 22, 1937, AEA 34-731; Einstein to Sidney Hook, Feb. 23, 1937, AEA 34-735.

  66. Sidney Hook, “My Running Debate with Einstein,”Commentary , July 1982, 39.

  CHAPTER TWENTY: QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT

  1. Hoffmann 1972, 190; Rigden, 144; Léon Rosenfeld, “Niels Bohr in the Thirties,” in Rozental 1967, 127; N. P. Landsman, “When Champions Meet: Re-thinking the Bohr–Einstein Debate,”Studies in the History and Science of Modern Physics 37 (Mar. 2006): 212.

  2. Einstein 1949b, 85.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Einstein to Max Born, Mar. 3, 1947, in Born 2005, 155 (not in AEA).

  5. Einstein to Erwin Schrödinger, June 19, 1935, AEA 22-47.

  6. New York Times , May 4 and 7, 1935; David Mermin, “My Life with Einstein,” Physics Today (Jan. 2005).

  7. Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen, “Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Regarded as Complete?,” Physical Review, May 15, 1935 (received Mar. 25, 1935); www.drchinese.com/David/EPR.pdf.

  8. Another formulation of the experiment would be for one observer to measure the position of a particle while at the “same moment” another observer measures the momentum of its twin. Then they compare notes and, supposedly, know the position and momentum of both particles. See Charles Seife, “The True and the Absurd,” in Brockman, 71.

  9. Aczel 2002, 117.

  10. Whitaker, 229; Aczel 2002, 118.

  11. Niels Bohr, “Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Regarded as Complete?,”Physical Review , Oct. 15, 1935 (received July 13, 1935).

  12. Greene 2004, 102. Note that Arthur Fine says that the synopsis of EPR used by Bohr “is closer to a caricature of the EPR paper than it is to a serious reconstruction.” Fine says that Bohr and other interpreters of Einstein feature a “criterion of reality” that Einstein in his own later writings on EPR does not feature, even though the EPR paper as written by Podolsky does talk about determining “an element of reality.” Brian Greene’s book is among those that do emphasize the “criterion of reality” element. See Arthur Fine, “The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Argument in Quantum Theory,”Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , plato.
stanford.edu/entries/qt-epr/, and also: Fine 1996, chapter 3; Mara Beller and Arthur Fine, “Bohr’s Response to EPR,” in Jann Faye and Henry Folse, eds., Niels Bohr and Contemporary Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1994), 1–31.