Einstein: A Life of Genius (The True Story of Albert Einstein)

by Kennedy, Alexander

  When dropped from the same height, all objects fall to the ground with the same acceleration, as Galileo proved. To Einstein, this meant the force by which the earth pulls must be different for bodies of different masses. If the mass of the body is tripled, the force by which it is pulled down is likewise tripled. Einstein’s principle of equivalence states that accelerated motion and gravity are equal to each other. Einstein points out that, having previously proven that light has mass in the form of photons, through the principle of equivalence, light will bend towards any gravitational force equivalent to the light’s mass.

  A Teaching Position at Last

  Despite continuing debate and dissent in the world of science and physics over his findings, by 1908 Einstein was recognized as a force within the scientific community, and was invited to lecture at the University of Bern. The following year, he received an appointment as an associate professor at the University of Zürich. He was finally able to resign his post at the patent office.

  Einstein’s period at the patent office had been productive in terms of developing his scientific reputation and standing, though not for his bureaucratic career. Although he had received raises in his pay, he had been passed over for promotion more than once. It appears that much of his work at the patent office supported his own work, particularly in the area of time synchronization between electrical and mechanical devices. During his time at the patent office, Einstein learned to work productively within a regimented environment, an ability that had escaped him during his academic career. He was not yet the famous Professor Einstein, but his reputation was on the rise.

  Chapter 3: Professor Einstein

  Throughout his life, Albert Einstein retained a roving eye and a flirtatious spirit. These traits would occasionally get him into trouble. Unfortunately for Einstein, his first wife, Mileva Maric, was not possessed of a temperament that would allow her to understand or endure her husband’s flirtatious nature. Einstein’s flirting — which was often of a playful nature — sparked jealousy in his wife, which, coupled with the long hours dedicated to his work, had, by 1909, resulted in a strained marriage.

  In October 1909, the Einsteins’ relocated to Zürich so that Albert could assume the post of junior professor at the University of Zürich, which helped ease the strains on their relationship. Mileva was happy to return to the town where they had met, and before they had been in Zürich for a month she again became pregnant. Despite this promising start to their time in Zürich, problems within the marriage soon arose again.

  The Search for a Teaching Position

  Einstein’s appointment to a professorship did not come easily. Despite being consulted by the leading physicists of the day, his many applications for a teaching position continued to be rejected. By 1908, he was applying for positions as a teacher of mathematics at the high school level. His desperation was based not on the desire to teach, but by the desire to have access to libraries, laboratories, and students to assist him in his research.

  Part of his difficulty obtaining a position was his own reputation of being difficult to work with and undisciplined. Einstein had left a bad taste in the mouths of many of his former teachers. Another problem, which he recognized, was the rampant anti-Semitism of the day. Einstein was aware of this obstacle. In a letter to Marcel Grossmann, in which he asked about the possibility of interviewing for a teaching position, he asked his old friend, “Wouldn’t I make a bad impression on him (no Swiss-German dialect, my Semitic appearance, etc.)?

  In 1908, he was finally accepted as a guest lecturer at the University of Bern. His lectures were not offered to students for credit, but merely for information. With this foot in the door, he began to present lectures based on his papers; by the summer of 1909, he had only a single attendee, and he canceled the lectures.

  One of his lectures was attended by Alfred Kleiner, Professor of Physics at the University of Zurich, who had recently created a post in theoretical physics as an associate professorship. Kleiner wanted Einstein for the job, but after evaluating the lecture, his opinion of Einstein’s abilities was that he was “…a long way from being a teacher.” Einstein believed that Kleiner’s assessment had been too harsh, and asked for a second opportunity. He and Kleiner agreed that Einstein would deliver a guest lecture at Zurich in February 1909. Einstein’s abilities as a lecturer can be summed up by his own comments of the presentation he delivered on that occasion. “Contrary to my habit,” he said, “I lectured well…”

  Kleiner’s recommendation to the university that Einstein be hired for the new position was tempered by his observation that, “Dr. Einstein will prove his worth also as a teacher, because he is too intelligent and too conscientious not to be open to advice when necessary.” Still, Einstein’s Jewish background presented difficulties from some of the faculty. In their conclusion of Einstein’s worthiness for the position, they stated, “…Herr Dr. Einstein is an Israelite and since precisely to the Israelites among scholars are inscribed (in numerous cases not entirely without cause) all kinds of unpleasant peculiarities of character, such as intrusiveness, impudence, and a shopkeeper’s mentality…” Regardless, the faculty decided not to adopt anti-Semitism as official policy, as it was not “compatible with its dignity.”

  When Einstein accepted the professorship, after extended salary negotiations, his comment to a friend indicated that his opinion of teachers in general remained unchanged since his school days. “…I too am an official member of the guild of whores,” he said.

  Einstein Adopts His Image

  During his years at the patent office, Einstein showed up to work dressed neatly, if not impeccably, as befitted a public servant. As a professor, the iconic image of Einstein began to take shape, including the too short, baggy trousers, battered sweater, and indifferently coiffed hair. In his lectures, Einstein carried an informal approach as well, worked from minimal notes, and allowed his students to interrupt him with questions or comments. Frequently, he would end his last lecture of the day by inviting his students to join him at a nearby café, where informal discussions of the material presented would continue. Einstein would even invite students to join him at his home to dissect papers he received from other physicists.

  In July, 1910, Einstein’s second son, Eduard, was born. Einstein was an attentive father when his children were young. One of his students later recalled visiting the professor at his home to find Einstein writing with one hand and holding the baby with his left while the elder son, Hans Albert, played at his feet. “It gave me a glimpse into his immense powers of concentration,” he later wrote.

  The Upwardly Mobile Professor

  When the possibility of a move to a more prestigious position in Prague arose, Einstein’s students petitioned the University to do all that it could to retain him, an indication of his popularity. The University responded by giving Einstein a raise of more than 20%. Still, the University of Prague persisted. Einstein was their first choice, and he was inclined to accept.

  The position required the approval of the Education Ministry in Vienna, capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as the final approval of the Emperor. The ministry decided not to appoint Einstein, and instead selected an Austrian physicist named Gustav Jaumann. Einstein believed that he was not selected “because of [his] Semitic origin…”

  When Jaumann learned that Einstein had been the faculty’s first choice for the position, he turned it down, sneering, “I will have nothing to do with a university that chases after modernity and does not appreciate merit.” The Austro-Hungarian Empire required its public servants to be Austrian citizens and members of a religious denomination. Einstein obligingly listed his religion as “Mosaic” and accepted Austrian citizenship, but did not renounce his Swiss. In March, the Einsteins moved to Prague. For the first time in their lives, their home had electric lighting.

  Einstein Travels Throughout Europe

  Einstein continued to be in demand at conferences and seminars, where his theories regarding
electromagnetic radiation were debated, and the reality of quanta was questioned. The old guard in the House of Physics yielded slowly, in particular Planck. After one such conference, Einstein wrote, “Planck stuck stubbornly to some undoubtedly wrong preconceptions.” Still, his reputation within the scientific community continued to grow.

  During his travels around Europe, delivering lectures and attending conferences, Maleva stayed behind in Prague, a city which she detested. She became morose over his long absences, and Einstein later insisted that she was schizophrenic, traceable to “genetic disposition coming from her mother’s family.”

  In the spring of 1912, Einstein travelled to Berlin, where he renewed his relationship with his cousin Elsa, whom he had known well as a child. Three years older than Albert, they were cousins on both sides of Albert’s family. Albert’s flirtatious nature soon presented itself, and upon his return to Prague they began a correspondence, with Elsa’s letters addressed to Albert’s office to maintain secrecy. Albert began to look for ways to move to Berlin, likely to pursue a relationship with Elsa.

  The Return to Zurich

  By 1912, both Albert and Maleva were tired of life in Prague and the middle class German community. “These are not people with natural sentiments,” Albert wrote to Michele Besso. In the same letter, Einstein described the people as snobbish and servile, and stated that he despised the class structures of the city.

  The Zurich Polytechnic, where Einstein had earned his teaching diploma, had by then become a fully accredited university, and been renamed the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The school did not yet have a professorial chair in theoretical physics. A medical researcher in Zurich, Heinrich Zangger, long a friend of Einstein’s, began to lobby for both the position and Einstein’s suitability to fill it. Still, the Institute dallied. Einstein told Zangger to drop it, and pursued the issue through other means. He acquired letters of recommendation from friends and colleagues, including Marie Curie, who was impressed with “the profundity of his knowledge,” and Henri Poincare.

  In July 1912, the Einsteins returned to Zurich. Both he and Maleva were happy to be back in Switzerland, and in response to newspaper speculation that anti-Semitism was the root of Einstein’s desire to leave Prague, he wrote, “I did not feel and did not notice any religious prejudice.”

  Maleva soon fell into depression again, however, and her general health declined. Letters from Elsa began to arrive in Zurich, the first requesting that he send her a book which would describe his theory of relativity. “There is no book on relativity that is comprehensible to the layman,” he wrote, before again exposing his flirtatiousness and inviting her coyly to visit Zurich for a long walk, “…without my wife, who is unfortunately very jealous.” Also in this letter, he revealed that he had been working on “generalizing” his theory of relativity.

  The Germans Recruit Einstein

  After just a few months in Zurich, Einstein was visited by Max Planck and Walther Nernst with an offer for a lucrative position in Berlin, then regarded as the scientific capital of Europe. The position was for professor at the University of Berlin, the director of a newly established institute of physics. If he accepted, he could become a member of the prestigious Prussian Academy of Sciences. He would have no teaching responsibilities and little administrative requirements. The offer also included a great deal of money. He would have to reapply for the German citizenship he had once renounced, but would be allowed to retain his Swiss.

  Einstein realized that the numerous papers he had produced over the preceding years, as well as his lectures on the subject, meant that the Germans hoped he would be able to complete his theory of general relativity, and that the prestige from success would be shared with German institutions. “The Germans are gambling on me as they would on a prize-winning hen, but I don’t know if I can still lay eggs,” he told one friend. To another he said, “I could not resist the temptation to accept a position in which I am relieved of all responsibilities so that I can give myself over completely to rumination.”

  Regardless of the high expectations and his doubt that he could meet them, he accepted the position, and moved to Berlin, though his motives may not have been solely professional. Years later, he told Zangger, “She was the main reason for my going to Berlin, you know,” referring to Elsa.

  Einstein’s Marriage Collapses

  Maleva didn’t like the idea of moving to Berlin, even without the knowledge of Einstein’s growing relationship with Elsa. By the spring of 1914, the Einsteins were settled in the German capital, and domestic tensions had increased. In July, Maleva moved out of the house, taking the two boys with her.

  In the middle of that month, Einstein proposed a solution to their troubles in the form of a formal contract, in which her domestic duties were spelled out in detail, and that Maleva would renounce all personal relations with Einstein, “insofar as they are not completely necessary for social reasons. The contract also included the requirement, “You will stop talking to me if I request it.” Maleva agreed to his terms.

  When Einstein received word through an intermediary of her acceptance, he doubled down with another letter. In it, he explained that their new relationship would have the “personal aspects… reduced to a tiny remnant.” He was adamant that there would be no reconciliation, and had no interest in making an attempt. Maleva would be his housekeeper and the mother of his children, nothing more. This time, Maleva refused his offer, and they drew up a formal separation agreement. Einstein withdrew to the home of his cousin Elsa. By the end of July, Maleva was on her way to Zurich, with the two boys, escorted by Michele Besso.

  As the summer of 1914 drew to a close, Einstein became entangled in the meshes of a nasty, long distance divorce. He accused Maleva of alienating the children from him, and deliberately keeping him from seeing them. They also had constant arguments over money. During this spiteful protracted legal conflict, he was under pressure from Elsa, who wanted a nice home, nice furniture, comfortable surroundings, and a husband.

  Assessing Einstein’s Teaching Career

  By the beginning of World War One, Einstein’s career as a teaching professor had drawn to a close. He had never attained a reputation as a strong lecturer. Like his appearance, his lectures were, more often than not, slipshod and presented with little preparation. They became “thought experiments” in which ideas were exchanged and developed with his students. Nonetheless, his students were both responsive and loyal. His friend Heinrich Zangger said that Einstein was “not a good teacher for mentally lazy gentlemen who merely want to fill a notebook and then learn it by heart for an exam…”

  During one lecture, Einstein found himself temporarily bewildered at how to complete a calculation. He asked his students if any of them could see the answer, and received no reply. Einstein directed the students to leave a blank space in their notes and soldiered on. Several minutes later, while presenting a different point entirely, he exclaimed, “I’ve got it,” and resolved the calculation. The student who related this story later wrote, “During the complicated development of his theme he had still found time to reflect upon the nature of that particular mathematical transformation.”

  Einstein’s approach to teaching was the opposite to the type he had been exposed as a student. Rather than reciting facts for memorization, he challenged his students to join him in creative thought, stimulating their minds, as well as his.

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  Chapter 4: The International Celebrity

  Beginning in 1911, Einstein returned to his work on general relativity, and published several papers and presented lectures that addressed his progress on his theory. It remained controversial among physicists. The persistent Einst
ein, his stubborn streak on clear display, was ready to prove his theory by 1913, and a total solar eclipse in late August the following year appeared to offer the opportunity for him to do so. Arrangements were made for an astronomer— Erwin Freundlich, who had read Einstein’s theory that light is bent by gravity and was equally eager to prove it— to travel to Crimea to photograph the eclipse. Einstein presented the young Freundlich to his audience during a lecture on general relativity as “the man who will be testing the theory next year.”

  Raising the money for the trip was problematic at first. Einstein was so confident that his theory was correct that he promised to fund the trip entirely out of his own pocket, though this proved unnecessary when sufficient private donations appeared, including support from German industrial giant Krupp. Freundlich and his team were soon in place, prepared to take the photographs which would demonstrate starlight deflected by the sun’s gravity.