by Michio Kaku
Einstein, a confirmed pacifist, refused to sign the manifesto. Georg Nicolai, Elsa’s physician, was a prominent anti-war activist and asked one hundred intellectuals to sign a counter-manifesto. Because of the overwhelming war hysteria gripping Germany, only four actually did sign it, among them Einstein. Einstein could only shake his head in disbelief, writing, “Unbelievable what Europe has unleashed in its folly.” He added sadly, “At such a time as this one realizes what a sorry species of animal one belongs to.”
In 1916, Einstein’s world was rocked once again, this time by the astonishing news that his close idealistic friend, Friedrich Adler, the same physicist who generously gave up a potential professorship at the University of Zurich in Einstein’s favor, had assassinated the Austrian prime minister, Count Karl von Stürgkh, in a crowded Vienna restaurant, shouting, “Down with tyranny! We want peace!” The entire country was riveted by the news that the son of the founder of the Austrian Social Democrats had committed an unspeakable act of murder against the nation. Adler was immediately sent to prison, where he faced a possible death sentence. While awaiting his trial, Adler returned to his favorite pastime, physics, and began writing a long essay that was critical of Einstein’s theory of relativity. In fact, in the midst of all the turmoil he had created by the assassination and its potential consequences, he preoccupied himself with the idea that he had found a crucial error in relativity!
Adler’s father Viktor seized upon the only possible defense available to his son. Realizing that mental illness ran in the family, Viktor stated that his son was mentally deranged, and pleaded for leniency. As proof of his madness, Viktor pointed to the fact that his son was trying to disprove Einstein’s well-accepted theory of relativity. Einstein offered to be a character witness, but he was never called.
Though the court originally found Adler guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging, the sentence was later changed to life imprisonment as a result of pleas on his behalf by Einstein and others. (Ironically, with the subsequent collapse of the government after World War I, Adler was freed in 1918 and was even elected to the Austrian National Assembly, becoming one of the most popular figures in the labor movement.)
The war and the great mental effort necessary to create general relativity inevitably took a toll on Einstein’s health, which was always precarious. He finally collapsed in pain in 1917, suffering from a near breakdown. So weakened was he by his Herculean mental feat that he was unable to leave his apartment. His weight plummeted dangerously by 56 pounds in just two months. Becoming a shell of his former self, he felt that he was dying of cancer, but was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer. The physician recommended complete rest and a change in diet. During this period, Elsa became a constant companion, nursing the ailing Einstein slowly back to health. He grew much closer to Elsa and her daughters as well, especially after he moved into an apartment next to hers.
In June 1919, Einstein finally married Elsa. With very definite ideas of what a distinguished professor should dress like, she helped to usher in his transition from a bohemian, bachelor professor to an elegant, domesticated husband, perhaps preparing him for the next development in his life as he emerged a heroic figure on the world stage.
CHAPTER 5
The New Copernicus
Einstein, recovering from the disruption and chaos of World War I, eagerly awaited the analysis of the next solar eclipse, to take place on May 29, 1919. One British scientist, Arthur Eddington, was keenly interested in performing the decisive experiment to test Einstein’s theory. Eddington was secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society in England and was equally at ease with performing astronomical observations by telescope and delving into the mathematics of general relativity. He also had another reason for performing the solar eclipse experiment: he was a Quaker, and his pacifist beliefs prevented him from fighting with the British army during World War I. In fact, he was fully prepared to go to prison rather than be inducted into the military. The officials of Cambridge University feared a scandal if one of its young stars went to jail as a conscientious objector, so they were able to negotiate a deferment from the government, on the stipulation that he perform a civic duty, specifically, leading an expedition to observe the solar eclipse of 1919 and test Einstein’s theory. So now it was his official patriotic duty for the war effort to lead the expedition to test general relativity.
Arthur Eddington set up camp at the island of Principe, in the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of West Africa, and another team, led by Andrew Crommelin, set sail to Sobral in northern Brazil. Bad weather conditions, with rain clouds blocking out the sun, almost ruined the entire experiment. But the clouds miraculously parted just enough for photographs to be taken of the stars at 1:30 in the afternoon.
It would be months, however, before the teams could return to England and carefully analyze their data. When Eddington finally compared his photographs with other photographs taken in England several months earlier with the same telescope, he found an average deflection of 1.61 arc seconds, while the Sobral team determined a value of 1.98 arc seconds. Taking an average, they calculated 1.79 arc seconds, which confirmed Einstein’s prediction of 1.74 arc seconds to within experimental error. Eddington would later fondly recall that verifying Einstein’s theory was the greatest moment in his life.
On September 22, 1919, Einstein finally received a cable from Hendrik Lorentz, informing him of the fantastic news. Einstein excitedly wrote to his mother, “Dear Mother—Good news today. H. A. Lorentz cabled me that the English expedition really has proved the deflection of light by the sun.” Max Planck apparently stayed up all night to see if the solar eclipse data would verify general relativity. Einstein joked later, “If he had really understood the general theory of relativity, he would have gone to bed the way I did.”
Although the scientific community was now buzzing with the startling news of Einstein’s new theory of gravity, the firestorm did not break publicly until a joint meeting of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society in London on November 6, 1919. Einstein was suddenly transformed from a senior, distinguished professor of physics in Berlin to a world figure, a worthy successor to Isaac Newton. At that meeting, philosopher Alfred Whitehead noted, “There was an atmosphere of tense interest that was exactly that of a Greek drama.” Sir Frank Dyson was the first to speak. He said, “After careful study of the plates I am prepared to say that there can be no doubt that they confirm Einstein’s prediction. A very definite result has been obtained that light is deflected in accordance with Einstein’s law of gravity.” The Nobel laureate J. J. Thomson, president of the Royal Society, said solemnly, this is “one of the greatest achievements in the history of human thought. It is not the discovery of an outlying island but of a whole continent of new scientific ideas. It is the greatest discovery in connection with gravitation since Newton enunciated his principles.”
According to legend, as Eddington left the assembly, another scientist stopped him and asked, “There’s a rumor that only three people in the entire world understand Einstein’s theory. You must be one of them.” Eddington stood in silence, so the scientist said, “Don’t be modest Eddington.” Eddington shrugged, and said, “Not at all. I was wondering who the third might be.”
The next day, the Times of London splashed the headline: “Revolution in Science—New Theory of the Universe—Newton’s Ideas Overthrown—Momentous Pronouncement—Space ‘Warped.’” (Eddington wrote to Einstein, “All England is talking about your theory…. For scientific relations between England and Germany, this is the best thing that could have happened.” The London newspapers also noted, approvingly, that Einstein did not sign the infamous manifesto of ninety-three German intellectuals that had infuriated British intellectuals.)
Eddington, in fact, would serve as Einstein’s main proponent and keeper of the flame in the English-speaking world, defending general relativity against all challengers. Like Thomas Huxley in the previous century, who served as “Darwin’s bulldog” to promote
the heretical theory of evolution to a deeply religious Victorian England, Eddington would use the full force of his scientific reputation and considerable debating skills to promote relativity. This strange union between two pacifists, a Quaker and a Jew, helped to bring relativity to the English-speaking people.
So suddenly did this story burst on the world media that many newspapers were caught off guard, scrambling to find anyone with a knowledge of physics. The New York Times hurriedly sent its golf expert, Henry Crouch, to cover this fast-breaking story, adding numerous errors in the process. The Manchester Guardian sent its music critic to cover the story. Later, the Times of London asked Einstein to elaborate on his new theory in an article. To illustrate the relativity principle, he wrote in the Times: “Today in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be regarded as a bête noire, the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English.”
Soon, hundreds of newspapers were clamoring for an exclusive interview with this certified genius, this successor to Copernicus and Newton. Einstein was besieged by reporters eager to make their deadlines. It seemed that every newspaper in the world was carrying this story on its front pages. Perhaps the public, exhausted by the carnage and senseless savagery of World War I, was ready for a mythic figure who tapped into their deepest myths and legends about the stars in the heavens, whose mystery has forever been in their dreams. Einstein, moreover, had redefined the image of genius itself. Instead of an aloof figure, the public was delighted that this messenger from the stars was a young Beethoven, complete with flaming hair and rumpled clothes, who could wise-crack with the press and thrill the crowds with learned one-liners and quips.
He wrote to his friends, “At present, every coachman and every waiter argues about whether or not the relativity theory is correct. A person’s conviction on this point depends on the political party he belongs to.” But after the novelty wore off, he began to see the down side to this publicity. “Since the flood of newspaper articles,” he wrote, “I have been so swamped with questions, invitations, challenges, that I dream I am burning in Hell and the postman is the Devil eternally roaring at me, throwing new bundles of letters at my head because I have not answered the old ones.” He concluded, “This world is a curious madhouse” with him at the center of this “relativity circus,” as he called it. He lamented, “I feel now something like a whore. Everybody wants to know what I am doing.” Curiosity seekers, cranks, circus promoters, all clamored for a piece of Albert Einstein. The Berliner Illustrite Zeitung detailed some of the problems faced by the suddenly famous scientist, who declined a generous offer from the London Palladium booking agent to include him on a bill with comedians, tightrope walkers, and fire eaters. Einstein could always politely say no to offers that would make him into a curiosity, but he could do nothing to prevent babies and even cigar brands from being named after him.
Anything as momentous as Einstein’s discovery inevitably invited armies of skeptics to mount a counterattack. The skeptics were led by the New York Times. After recovering from the initial shock of being scooped by the British press, its editors kidded the British people for being so gullible, for being so quick to accept the theories of Einstein. The New York Times wrote that the British “seem to have been seized with something like intellectual panic when they heard of photographic verification of the Einstein theory…. They are slowly recovering as they realize that the sun still rises—apparently—in the east.” What particularly irked the editors in New York and aroused their suspicion was that so very few people in the world could make any sense of the theory. The editors wailed that this was bordering on being un-American and undemocratic. Was the world being duped by a practical joker?
In the academic world, the skeptics were legitimized by a Columbia University professor of celestial mechanics, Charles Lane Poor. He mistakenly led the charge by stating, “The supposed astronomical proofs of the theory, as cited and claimed by Einstein, do not exist.” Poor compared the author of relativity theory to the characters of Lewis Carroll: “I have read various articles on the fourth dimension, the relativity theory of Einstein, and other psychological speculation on the constitution of the universe; and after reading them I feel as Senator Brandegee felt after a celebrated dinner in Washington. ‘I feel,’ he said, ‘as if I had been wandering with Alice in Wonderland and had tea with the Mad Hatter.’” Engineer George Francis Gillette fumed that relativity was “cross-eyed physics…utterly mad…the moronic brain child of mental colic…the nadir of pure drivel…and voodoo nonsense. By 1940, relativity will be considered a joke. Einstein is already dead and buried alongside Anderson, Grimm, and the Mad Hatter.” Ironically, the only reason why historians still remember these individuals is their futile tirades against relativity theory. It is the hallmark of good science that physics is not determined by a popularity contest or by New York Times editorials, but by careful experimentation. As Max Planck once said, referring to the ferocious criticism that he once faced when proposing his quantum theory, “A new scientific truth does not as a rule prevail because its opponents declare themselves persuaded or convinced, but because the opponents gradually die out and the younger generation is made familiar with the truth from the start.” Einstein himself once remarked, “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
Unfortunately, the adulation of Einstein in the press stimulated the hatred, jealousy, and bigotry of the growing army of his detractors. The most notorious hater of Jews in the physics establishment was Philipp Lenard, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist who had established the basic frequency dependence of the photoelectric effect, a result that was finally explained by Einstein’s theory of the light quantum, the photon. Mileva had even attended Lenard’s lectures when she visited Heidelberg. In lurid publications, he decried that Einstein was a “Jewish fraud” and that relativity “could have been predicted from the start—if race theory had been more widespread—since Einstein was a Jew.” Eventually, he became a leading member of what was called the Anti-relativity League, devoted to purging “Jewish physics” from Germany and establishing the purity of Aryan physics. Lenard was by no means alone within the physics world. He was joined by many in the German scientific establishment, including Nobel laureate Johannes Stark and Hans Geiger (inventor of the Geiger counter).
In August 1920, this virulent group of detractors booked Berlin’s huge Philharmonic Hall strictly for the purpose of denouncing relativity theory. Remarkably, Einstein was in the audience. He braved a nonstop series of angry speakers who denounced him as a publicity hound, plagiarist, and charlatan to his face. The next month, there was yet another such confrontation, this time at a meeting of the Society of German Scientists in Bad Nauheim. Armed police were present to guard the hall’s entrance and dampen any demonstration or violence. Einstein was jeered and hooted down when he tried to answer some of Lenard’s inflammatory charges. News of this raucous exchange hit the papers in London, and the people of Britain became alarmed by rumors that Germany’s great scientist was being hounded out of Germany. The German Foreign Office representative in London, to quell such rumors, said it would be catastrophic for German science if Einstein left, and that “we should not drive away such a man…whom we can use in effective cultural propaganda.”
In April of 1921, with invitations pouring in from all corners of the world, Einstein decided to use his new celebrity to promote not only relativity but also his other causes, which now included peace and Zionism. He had finally rediscovered his Jewish roots. In long conversations with his friend Kurt Blumenfeld, he began to fully appreciate the deep suffering inflicted on the Jewish people throughout the centuries. Blumenfeld, he wrote, was responsible for “making me conscious of my Jewish soul.” Chaim Weizmann, a leading Zionist, focused on the idea of using Einstein as a magnet to attract funds for Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The plan involved
sending Einstein on a tour through the heartland of America.
As soon as Einstein’s ship docked in New York Harbor, he was mobbed by reporters eager for a glimpse of him. Crowds lined the streets of New York to view his motorcade and cheered when he waved back from his open-topped limousine. “It’s like the Barnum circus!” Elsa said, as someone threw a bouquet at her. Einstein mused, “The ladies of New York want to have a new style every year. This year the fashion is relativity.” He added, “Do I have something of a charlatan or a hypnotist about me that draws people like a circus clown?”
As expected, Einstein aroused intense interest among the public and galvanized the Zionist cause. Well-wishers, curiosity seekers, and Jewish admirers packed every auditorium he spoke in. A mob of eight thousand squeezed into the Sixty-ninth Regiment Armory in Manhattan while three thousand had to be turned away, eagerly awaiting a glimpse of the genius. Einstein’s reception at City College of New York was one of the highlights of the trip. Isidor Isaac Rabi, who would later win a Nobel Prize, took copious notes of Einstein’s lecture and marveled that Einstein, unlike other physicists, possessed a crowd-pleasing charisma. (Even today, a picture of the entire student body of City College of New York crowding around Einstein hangs in the chairman’s office at the school.)
After leaving New York, Einstein’s trip through the United States was like a whistle-stop tour, passing through several major cities. In Cleveland, three thousand people mobbed him. He escaped “from possibly serious injury only by strenuous efforts by a squad of Jewish war veterans who fought the people off in their mad efforts to see him.” In Washington, he met with President Warren G. Harding. Unfortunately, they could not communicate, since Einstein spoke no English and Harding did not speak German or French. (In all, Einstein’s whirlwind tour netted almost a million dollars, $250,000 alone from a single dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel speaking before eight hundred Jewish doctors.)
